Chemotherapy Possible During Pregnancy
London, United Kingdom - Promising news for women who face the challenge of both being pregnant and fighting cancer: traditional chemotherapy treatments are safe. According to the studies, pregnant women who undergo chemotherapy run the same side-effect risk as women who are not pregnant.
Cancer while pregnant is an issue that is becoming more common, especially since many women are putting off starting a family until later in life.
With this relatively new phenomena, doctors and researchers have to determine what the safest treatment routes for not only the cancer patient, but also for the developing fetus.
In a study out of Belgium, the development of fetuses in wombs exposed to chemotherapy were at the same rate as those fetuses who were not subjected to the treatment. For the effect of chemotherapy, the development markers studied included IQ and circulatory system.
However, in the past, one of the most common treatments offered to women who are both pregnant and battling cancer is to end the pregnancy. It has been proven that terminating the pregnancy does not improve the mother's outcome from cancer.
In fact, it seems that the placenta blocks the harmful chemotherapy toxins from the fetus. Typically, chemotherapy is started after the first trimester.
Where the risk comes from is the decision to deliver early in order to start chemotherapy, radiation and other cancer treatments. Regardless of whether the mother has cancer or not, the biggest health risk for the child is a premature delivery. Children who are born early often have the same issues that researchers were looking into during chemotherapy: cognition and circulatory problems.
Though for some of the less common cancers that affect women like mesothelioma or lung cancer, the results out of Europe are hopeful. For cancers that have a long incubation period, such as pleural mesothelioma, more women who are choosing to have children later in life, receiving chemotherapy may actually become a reality. With mesothelioma, the development of the disease typically occurs up to several decades after the initial exposure to asbestos.
Essentially, the studies out of European shed an entirely new light on what it means to be pregnant with cancer. The risk to the fetus is equivalent to what the researchers deem “the general population.”
