Short Biography
Dr. Kenny A. Rodriguez Wallberg completed her medical education and her residency in obstetrics and gynecology in her home country, Colombia. As specialist, Dr Rodriguez-Wallberg was then awarded a fellowship from the Groupement Français de Gynécologie de l’Enfant et de l’Adolescence and completed her training in Pediatric Gynecology at Hôpital Necker Enfant Malades in Paris, as well as in Reproductive Endocrinology, Infertility and Assisted Reproduction at Cochin-Baudelocque. In 2005 she earned her PhD degree at Uppsala University in Sweden and since 2007, she is a Senior Consultant in Reproductive Medicine at Karolinska Hospital in Stockholm and Head of the Program for Fertility Preservation. Dr Rodriguez-Wallberg is currently adjunct professor at the department of Oncology-Pathology at Karolinska Institutet and is sharing her clinical work with both clinical and translational research.
Team fertility in the news
About our research
Our specific area of interest and expertise focuses on the impact of cancer treatment on fertility potential and the prevention of infertility through fertility preservation strategies. This new medical field has been recently recognized and is usually named “Reproductive Oncology”. In the U.S. the term “Oncofertility” has become popular. As several methods are available for fertility preservation and those are currently used for cancer patients, we consider it of outmost importance the investigation of their safety in the oncological context.
Our research also encompasses the impact of several variables and interventions, such as the performance of ovarian surgery, even conservative and for benign diseases, in the development of infertility, as well as the treatment of infertility, in particular by using assisted reproductive techniques in both men and women. Psychological aspects of infertility after cancer, ethics in health care provision and a better understanding of specific patient groups’ access and barriers to healthcare are also subject of my research.
Our research activity is clinically oriented and integrated into Dr Rodriguez-Wallberg clinical work as senior consultant at the Reproductive Medicine clinic of Karolinska University Hospital, where she has been the clinical responsible for the Program for Fertility Preservation since 2007. Our projects have developed into both clinical and experimental research and thus our current research network includes clinicians and basic science researchers. Our research results have contributed to the improvement of potentially safer stimulation protocols for female patients with hormone-sensitive tumors including breast cancer, one of the most challenging patient groups in the field of fertility preservation. Dr Rodriguez-Wallberg have introduced the use of aromatase inhibitors for stimulation protocols of patients with breast cancer at Karolinska University Hospital in 2010 and shared her experience with colleagues of several Swedish hospitals, who have thereafter implemented those protocols at their hospitals successfully. Several of our current projects in fertility preservation are prospective and of national coverage. Those projects include the evaluation of safety and efficacy of fertility preservation by surgical methods, such as in the case of gynecological cancer, and by the performance of assisted reproductive technologies.
Our research is supported by:
- The Swedish Research Council
- The Swedish Cancer Foundation
- The Swedish Childhood Cancer Foundation
- Radiumhemmets Research Fonds
- Stockholm County Council
Frozen eggs and ovarian tissue helped women conceive children after breast cancer
Women with breast cancer whose eggs or ovarian tissue were frozen had more children after their diagnosis than women who did not undergo fertility preservation using those methods before start of cancer treatment. That is according to a study led by Kenny Rodriguez-Wallberg at the department of Oncology-Pathology, published in JAMA Oncology.
Kenny Rodriguez-Wallberg reports large cohort study
Kenny Rodriguez-Wallberg has reported a large cohort study of 1254 women and girls undergoing procedures for fertility preservation in Sweden between 1998-2018
Fertility treatment did not increase risk of breast cancer relapse
Dr Kenny Rodriguez-Wallberg's research show that women who receives hormone stimulation for fertility preservation do not have a higher relapse rate in breast cancer compared with unexposed control women.