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Chemotherapy for malignant tumors is safe in pregnancy
Last reviewed: 01.07.2025
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Belgian scientists have concluded that chemotherapy for malignant tumors is safe during pregnancy and does not require termination, MedPage Today reports. Their findings are supported by a series of reviews on the topic published in The Lancet.
Until now, cancer in a pregnant woman has been the subject of a serious moral dilemma: treat the tumor, which poses a risk to the fetus, do not treat it, which puts the mother at risk, or terminate the pregnancy and treat the cancer.
Researchers from the University Hospital of Leuven followed 70 women who agreed to undergo cancer treatment without terminating their pregnancy and their children until they reached two years of age.
It turned out that the risk of chemotherapy for tumors does not pose a significant risk to the unborn child if the treatment was started after the child's organs had formed, that is, from about 14 weeks of pregnancy. The only side effect was that two-thirds of the children were born prematurely - before 37 weeks of pregnancy.
Prematurity is known to slightly reduce a child's IQ (by an average of 11.6 points for each month of prematurity). Among children whose mothers received chemotherapy, this reduction was no greater than that of other preterm infants, the researchers note in their publication in the journal Lancet Oncology.
Other indicators, such as behavior, general health, growth rate, hearing, etc., were completely consistent with the age norm. In addition, pregnancy did not worsen the prognosis of mothers compared to non-pregnant women.
The results obtained by the Belgian researchers are confirmed by a number of European reviews in The Lancet. In general, all of their authors agree that cancer treatment should not be an indication for terminating a pregnancy. Chemotherapy should only be postponed until the second trimester, which, as a rule, does not have critical consequences for the mother's health. Surgery is not contraindicated at any stage of pregnancy.
The only exceptions may be blood cancer and metastatic cervical cancer. The first is because its diagnosis and treatment during pregnancy are extremely difficult and often dangerous for the fetus. The second is because the treatment is aimed at the area where the child is located and, as a rule, should include both surgery and radiation and chemotherapy. At the same time, treatment of cervical cancer without metastases, including surgical removal of regional lymph nodes and the cervix itself, can be carried out without terminating the pregnancy, scientists believe.
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