Cancer link between mother and baby proven

October 14, 2009 by Shawn Douglas
Filed under: Baby Health, News

Professor Mel Greaves

Cancer passed from a 28-year-old Japanese mother to her baby, something that was theorized as possible but not proven.

A study led by Professor Mel Greaves of the Institute of Cancer Research in Sutton, Surrey, has proven that it’s possible for cancer cells to be transferred from a mother to a baby while in the womb.

The study involved a Japanese woman who was diagnosed with leukemia shortly after giving birth. When the baby was tested eleven months later, doctors gave the baby the same leukemia diagnosis.

Doctors focused on the child’s blood cells and the leukemia cells in the blood. Studies on the child’s blood cells proved that the child had the disease at birth and that it originated from the mother. Additional studies on the leukemia cells showed that a fundamental piece of DNA was missing that would cause the baby’s immune system to flag the leukemia cells as intruders.

In the majority of cases, a child’s immune system is able to recognize and destroy cancer cells. In fact, only about 30 cases of mother-to-baby transfer of cancer have been noted in medical literature (typically only leukemia or melanoma), and those studies were never able to show that the cancer originated from the mother. This being the case, transfer of cancer from a mother to her baby is exceedingly rare.

“This is an extremely unusual case, but this study is particularly revealing because it suggests that the cancer cells could only cause a problem in the baby by evading their immune system,” said Professor Peter Johnson of Cancer Research U.K.

“This is really important research as it adds to the evidence that cancers need to evade the immune system before they can grow, giving hope that by alerting a patient’s immune system to a cancer we can develop new types of treatment.”

“Women needing cancer treatment around the time of having a baby who are worried about this research should speak to the specialists looking after them for advice.”