|
No link between infertility, rare infant cancer:
study
Reported April 23, 2010
NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Children conceived with the help of
infertility treatment are no more likely than those conceived naturally to
develop infant leukemia, according to the largest study to date to
investigate the relationship.
Infant leukemia strikes children before they reach age one, and is believed
to be a different disease from leukemias occurring in older children, Dr.
Logan G. Spector of the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis, who helped
conduct the study, told Reuters Health. The disease is also extremely rare,
he added, with about 150 cases being diagnosed in the United States every
year. "It's literally less common than the proverbial lightning strike," he
said.
"Obviously when you have a disease as rare as this it's very difficult to
make progress on finding the causes," he added.
An earlier study had hinted that infertility treatment might be associated
with the disease. To investigate further, Spector and his colleagues looked
at 443 children with the disease and 324 healthy controls. All of the
children had been diagnosed between 1996 and 2006.
The researchers found no association between infertility in parents or
infertility treatment and risk of infant leukemia. While they did find that
the risk was actually increased for children born to women who weren't
trying to get pregnant versus women who'd been trying for less than a year,
this finding should be taken with a grain of salt, Spector noted. "The more
ways you cut the data, the more likely you are to find something spurious."
Based on the findings, he and his colleagues conclude, "we can potentially
rule out large increases in risk associated with parental infertility or its
treatment."
The issue of whether infertility and infertility treatment are related to
childhood cancers overall remains open, Spector said. He and his colleagues
are planning a study to investigate the relationship.
However, he added, "no matter whether a child was born after spontaneous
conception or with assistance, the vast majority of those kids are perfectly
healthy."
SOURCE: Reuters Health |
