Sperm banking is of key importance in patients with prostate cancer

OBJECTIVE: To assess the need for sperm banking among patients with prostate cancer (PCa) who are candidates for radical prostatectomy (RP). DESIGN: Cross-sectional study. SETTING: Urologic department. PATIENT(S): Cohort of 510 Caucasian-European candidates for RP. INTERVENTION(S): A 10-item self-administered questionnaire to assess opinions on sperm banking before RP, to which descriptive statistics and logistic regression models were applied. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURE(S): PCa patients' wishes for preoperative sperm banking. RESULT(S): Data collection was completed for 495 patients (97.1%). Ninety-nine (20%) expressed a wish for preoperative sperm banking. Men who wanted to bank sperm were younger (mean 62.2 vs. 65.1 years), were more frequently childless (21.2% vs. 8.8%), and more frequently had a more intense desire for fatherhood (64.7% vs. 9.3%) than the patients not interested in banking sperm. Willingness to bank sperm was not affected by the patient's educational or relationship status. Moreover, the interest for sperm banking was maintained regardless of cost issues. Overall, 84% of the patients considered it necessary to have a dedicated service of preoperative sperm cryopreservation. CONCLUSION(S): One out of five PCa patients would bank sperm before RP. Most patients considered it necessary to establish a dedicated service for preoperative sperm cryopreservation, regardless of their own motivation to bank sperm.