Parents make the hardest decisions for the sake of the safety and well-being of their children, especially pregnant women who are diagnosed with cancer during pregnancy. But according to a new study, cancer therapies do not affect the physical and mental well-being of their children.
Usually, when pregnant women are diagnosed with cancer, doctors may propose to delay the treatment after giving birth or allow the baby to be delivered pre-term. Some mothers may also have to make the difficult choice of ending the pregnancy to receive the treatment.
Based on the results of a study conducted by the European researchers, which they shared on Monday, Sept 28, in the ongoing European Cancer Congress, they may no longer have to do any of those. The results are also available in New England Journal of Medicine.
The study was conducted on more than 300 European children. Half of the children were born from mothers who had cancer. More than 69% of them had mothers with chemotherapy alone and 3% had radiation alone. At least 5% had mothers with both chemo and radiation while a very small percentage were delivered by mothers who received drugs like interferon. Around 10% of them were from moms who underwent surgery to halt the progression of cancer. At least 11% of the mothers with cancer didn't receive any treatment while pregnant.
The remaining half of the participants were born from mothers who didn't have cancer, and thus, the group served as the control.
The researchers then tracked the development of all the children in two periods: first, when they were only 18 months, and second, when they reached 3 years old.
When the data were then compared, they found out that children who were born from mothers with cancer and had proceeded with the treatment didn't have any difference in terms of physical and mental development than children whose mothers didn't have cancer or had cancer but didn't proceed with any treatment. Further, chemotherapy, which uses toxic combination of drugs, was not related to any outcome of the children.
However, the report also mentioned that pre-term birth was more common among women who had cancer. Sometimes the birth was induced while others were spontaneous. The exact reason why was not known in the study, but the chemotherapy drugs may be related to it.
Although more research needs to be conducted, this study may encourage doctors to avoid delaying the treatment but also make sure the patient brings the baby to full term.
