Article date: May 31, 2012
By Stacy Simon
When a pregnant woman is diagnosed with cancer, her treatment decisions are complicated by concern about how treatment may affect the baby’s health. Ideally, she can delay treatment until the baby is born, but sometimes a delay can allow the cancer to progress and make it harder to treat. The best time for beginning treatment to balance the baby’s and mother’s health needs isn’t always clear.
A series of articles published recently in The Lancet and The Lancet Oncology may make some of those treatment decisions easier. Teams of researchers from Belgium, France, and Israel found that many cases of cancer in pregnant women can be treated while the baby is carried to full term. Read the full story from the American Cancer Society.