Knowledge and attitude of indonesian obstetrician and gynecologists regarding fertility preservation in cancer patients

Introduction: Long-term effects of cancer and its treatments may cause loss of fertility. Fertility has received significant attention in improving the quality of life for cancer patients of childbearing age. Therefore, efforts were made to maintain the reproductive function in cancer patients through fertility preservation (FP). This study aimed to explore knowledge and attitudes among obstetrician and gynecologists in Indonesia regarding FP in cancer patients. Methods: Data was collected using questionnaires from 80 obstetrician and gynecologists in Indonesia. The questionnaire measures knowledge and attitude of FP. Results: Most of participants knew about FP (86.3%) but only felt knowledgeable about pre-treatment with GnRH Agonists, not other methods of FP. 95% expressed a need for more information. About 92.5% agreed that FP is high priority to discuss with newly diagnosed cancer patients and 45% agreed that treating the primary cancer was more important than FP. Most reported checking how important future fertility was for the cancer patients, 80% suggested FP to their patients and 35% reported having referred patients to a fertility specialist, but only 15.1% providing patients with written information. Most of them had never consulted any FP guidelines (26.3%), but consulted local hospital guidelines only (30%). The main barriers to initiating discussions about FP were poor success rates of fertility preservation options (97.5%), patients could not afford FP treatment (93.8%), poor patient prognosis (92.6%), lack of obstetrician and gynecologists’ knowledge (91.3%), and lack of fertility services in their area (81.3%). Conclusion: This study discover lack of knowledge about FP options in Indonesian obstetrician and gynecologists and highlights that the provision of information to patients about FP may be sub-optimal.