Study: Cancer may pass from pregnant mom to fetus

October 20, 2009

Mri-blog Cancer may be able to cross from a pregnant mother to the fetus, says a study in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Researchers examined a 28-year-old mother and her 11-month-old baby girl. A month after the baby was delivered, the mother was diagnosed with a blood cancer called acute lymphoblastic leukemia.

Ten months later, a tumor was found in the baby's cheek and fluid was building between her lung tissue and chest cavity.

Researchers found the cancer cells in the mother and infant shared a unique genomic sequence. "These data unambiguously mark the infant cancer as of maternal origin," says the study.

Researchers believe the cells may have crossed through the placenta, which connects the fetus to the mother's uterus.

About 17 cases of cancer transmitted from mother to fetus have been recorded since 1866, but evidence of the mother-infant link has been scarce, the authors say.

Both the mother and the baby received chemotherapy. After 19 days of treatment, the mother developed severe convulsions, respiratory failure and acute cardiac failure and died. The infant has been in remission for 18 months and is receiving maintenance chemotherapy.

The study was conducted by researchers from Tokyo Medical and Dental University, the Institute of Cancer Research in Sutton, United Kingdom, the University of Southampton, the Kyoto Prefectural University of Medicine and the Human Leukocyte Antigen Laboratory in Japan.

By Lindsey Anderson