Children Conceived Through Assisted Reproductive Technology Are at Risk of Developing Leukemia, Study Reveals

There are approximately 5 million children worldwide who were conceived using assisted reproductive technology (ART). As these children grow up, it is best to monitor their health to make sure they are in good shape. There have been several studies in the past linking these children to perinatal complications and congenital malformations. In a new study, it was also found that children conceived through ART are at a higher risk of developing leukemia.

According to Pediatrics online, researchers believed that the development of tumors are caused by several factors linked with conception and pregnancy since the kind of tumor is embryonic and appear early in life. There are also evidence showing that ART children may be at risk of having imprinting disorders (result from genetic abnormalities in imprinted genes) that are associated with elevated risk of having cancer.

In the study, researchers analyzed data of more than 1.5 million children born between the years 184 and 2011 which includes 25,782 who were conceived using ART. There were no significant differences between the two groups in the risk of developing childhood cancer. However, researchers discovered that children conceived through ART were three times most likely to develop leukemia than those who were naturally conceived, medicaldaily.com reported.

"This population-based cohort study found elevated risks of leukemia and Hodgkin's lymphoma in children conceived by ART," the authors concluded.

There have also been other health concerns for these children. When women use ART, they are implanted with a number of embryos to give them higher chances of getting pregnant. This may lead to having multiple births, like twins that can result to children being born prematurely or low birth weight which is known to cause a variety of health issues.

In 2013, researchers did an extensive analysis of evidence linking ART children to higher premature rate and low birth rate, and a slightly elevated risk of other birth defects. This was also done to the current study suggesting that ART children were more at risk of developing certain types of leukemia, specifically early onset acute lymphoblastic leukemia.

In the current study however, there were only 51 out of the millions of ART children who developed any cancer during the study. The researchers found that the number of those who developed Hodgkin's lymphoma was not that high, making it hard to come up with any hard conclusions. Despite these findings, it should be noted that the absolute chance of ART-associated health problems is very low.