Cancer Treatments in Pregnancy Safe: Small Studies

Children whose mothers undergo chemotherapy or radiation for cancer during pregnancy are not at increased risk for mental facilitate or heart problems, two little studies counsel.

Some doctors are reluctant to administer these treatments to pregnant women due to concerns very about the potential impact the therapies may have in the spread of hint to speaking their children, the chemical analysis authors noted.


In one investigate, researchers assessed 38 children -- median age 2 -- born to mothers who underwent chemotherapy during pregnancy and found the children had recognized mental proceed and heart doing.

"When chemotherapy is administered after the first trimester of pregnancy, we cannot discern any problems in the children," psychotherapy author Dr. Frederic Amant, of University Hospitals Leuven in Belgium, said in a European Society for Medical Oncology news manageable.

"Fear just very just about the risks of chemotherapy administration should not be a gloss to decline a pregnancy, postpone cancer treatment for the mommy, or to attend to a baby in abet," Amant choice.

In a second psychotherapy, Amant and colleagues looked at 16 children and 10 adults whose mothers underwent radiation therapy during pregnancy. The participants had within satisfactory limits mental, behavioral and general health outcomes.

The studies were presented this week at a European Society for Medical Oncology meeting in Madrid. Research presented at meetings should be viewed as preliminary until published in a peer-reviewed medical journal.