Pregnancy safe for cancer survivors

For women previously treated for breast cancer, becoming pregnant does not increase the risk that cancer will recur, nor reduce their chances of survival. There have been several similar studies earlier, but most of these studies had problems that made interpretation difficult and, as a result, the issue remained controversial. In the current study, researchers from the M.D. Anderson Cancer Centre in Houston, looked at the effect of pregnancy on cancer outcomes among 370 women who received chemotherapy for breast cancer. These women were not older than 35 years of age at the time of treatment. Forty-seven of the women had at least one pregnancy after cancer treatment. This group included 32 women with full-term pregnancies, 10 with spontaneous or elective abortions, 4 with miscarriages, and one with a premature delivery. The researchers reported that there was no evidence found that pregnancy had an adverse effect on the prognosis, even after taking into account the fact that women who did become pregnant were generally younger and had less advanced cancer than those who did not. Hence, given the results, there is no reason to discourage women who have been treated for breast cancer from bearing children. However, for reasons unknown, there does seem to be a higher rate of spontaneous abortion/miscarriage among women treated for breast cancer.