About APAFP
Social & Public Value
The field the association serves: fertility preservation as a matter of patient care, scientific progress and regional cooperation.
Fertility preservation is the branch of reproductive medicine concerned with protecting a person's ability to have children in the future. Its most familiar setting is oncology: some treatments for cancer and other serious illnesses can impair fertility, and preserving eggs, sperm, embryos or reproductive tissue before treatment can keep the possibility of biological parenthood open for patients after they recover. Fertility preservation techniques are also indicated in a range of other medical conditions.
This work sits at the intersection of clinical care and laboratory science. It depends on specialist centers, trained clinicians and embryologists, and a continuing exchange of research, data and clinical experience — so that patients in different countries and health systems can be offered options that reflect the current state of knowledge.
The Asia-Pacific region is home to many centers offering fertility preservation, working in diverse settings. A regional professional association gives these centers and their staff a common forum: a place to present and discuss research, to compare clinical approaches, and to build the collaborations that individual institutions cannot easily build alone.
The association's part
A modest, defined role
APAFP does not provide medical care, and this page is not medical advice. The association's contribution to the field is the one set out in its Articles of Incorporation: to promote research and clinical development in fertility preservation, to foster collaboration between the centers in the Asia-Pacific region that offer it, and to organize academic symposia — including the Asia-Pacific Congress on Fertility Preservation — where research, data, knowledge and theories in the field are presented, discussed, exchanged and published.
It does so as a nonprofit: no part of its earnings benefits its members, directors or officers, and its resources are committed to charitable, educational and scientific purposes. See Mission & Objectives for the association's purposes in full.
Patients seeking advice about fertility preservation should consult their own physicians and treatment centers. The association's public role is to help the professionals who serve them share knowledge across the region.