Finding out about sperm banking: what information is available online for men diagnosed with cancer?

Abstract

Sperm banking is routinely offered to men where there is a risk of infertility following cancer treatment but uptake is lower than expected. Since these men may turn to the internet for information, we used the search engine www.google.com to identify the material available about sperm banking and fertility preservation options. Sixty-six resources (NHS/Private Clinic, Charity, Press Releases, General and Forums/Blogs) fulfilled the criteria for inclusion and were examined for quality including readability, layout and content. The most frequently reported information related to: (1) effects of cancer treatment on fertility (77.3%); (2) reasons to bank sperm (69.7%); and (3) fertility recovery after treatment (57.6%). Information about maintaining contact with the sperm bank (18.2%) and disposal of banked samples (10.6%) was less often included. The quality of information available on the Internet about sperm banking was variable. The readability of all resources was assessed as ‘fairly difficult’, i.e. reading skills required were too complex for the average member of the public to understand. Furthermore, visual presentation of material (e.g. lay out) did not facilitate easy reading. More attention should be given to information about longer-term issues, such as fertility recovery and the use or disposal of banked sperm.

Keywords::

• Sperm banking
• internet information quality
• male infertility
• fertility preservation

Acknowledgements

The views expressed are those of the authors. CE and AAP initiated this work. HM and EW conducted the searches and conducted the content analyses. All authors contributed to the writing, and approved the content of this article.

Declaration of Interest: This research was supported by funding from Cancer Research-UK to CE and AAP (C481/A8141).