Cancer Treatment During Pregnancy Shouldn't Be Delayed, Not A Reason To Terminate

Results from a new study state that cancer is not a reason to terminate pregnancy, and cancer treatment during pregnancy shouldn't be delayed.

A new study presented at the European Cancer Congress in Vienna has discovered that cancer treatment during pregnancy has no negative effects on the baby, making it safe for worried mothers to actually undergo cancer treatments.

The study, published in The New England Journal of Medicine, states that unborn children who are exposed to cancer treatments during the prenatal period receive no negative effects from it—they also show normal mental health development and heart function, same as kids from the general population, whose mothers did not have cancer or cancer treatments.

"Our results show that fear of cancer treatment is no reason to terminate a pregnancy, that maternal treatment should not be delayed and that chemotherapy can be given. The study also shows that children suffer more from prematurity than from chemotherapy, so avoiding prematurity is more important than avoiding chemotherapy," said Professor Frédéric Amant in a press release via EurekAlert! Prof. Amant is a gynaecological oncologist at the University Hospitals Leuven (Leuven, Belgium) and at Antoni van Leeuwenhoek (Amsterdam, The Netherlands).

The study involved 129 children from Belgium, the Netherlands, Italy, and the Czech Republic. They were matched with a similar number of children of the same gestational age who were born to mothers unaffected by cancer. Their general and mental health were examined when they reached 18 months and 36 months (three years) old. At age three, 47 of the kids had electrocardiograms (ECG) and echocardiography to check the functioning of their hearts.

Common cancers among moms in the study were breast and blood cancers, such as leukemia and lymphoma. Eighty-nine of kids were exposed to chemotherapy, four to radiotherapy, seven to both chemo- and radiotherapy, one each to drugs trastuzumab and interferon beta, 13 to surgery alone, and 14 had none of the above treatments.

"Compared to the control group of children, we found no significant differences in mental development among children exposed to chemotherapy, radiotherapy, surgery alone or no treatment," said Prof. Amant.

However, he said that the study had limitations. "Our data include many types of chemotherapy, but we cannot guarantee that all types of chemotherapy are safe."

Reuters reports that Peter Naredi, an oncologist who was not involved in the study, said the findings should be encouraging to pregnant mothers who have cancer, and are worried for their child.

"The important message at this stage seems to be that doctors should not only start cancer treatment immediately, but should also try to maintain the pregnancy to as near full term as possible," he said.