Pregnancy in women with a history of breast cancer

doi:10.1136/bmj.39098.376181.BE

BMJ 2007;334:166-167 (27 January), doi:10.1136/bmj.39098.376181.BE

Editorials

Pregnancy in women with a history of breast cancer

The effect of pregnancy on survival and the best time to conceiveare uncertain, so consideration of individual priorities isessential

The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below.

Young women diagnosed with breast cancer beforecompleting their families face difficult decisions about futurechildbearing. Effective treatment tends to reduce fertility,and uncertainties remain regarding the effect of future pregnancyon survival. For women who decide that they do want to becomepregnant, the optimal timing of conception is not known.

A population based study by Ives and colleaguesin this week's BMJ assesses the effect of becoming pregnanton survival after breast cancer.¹ The study used the WesternAustralian data linkage system to identify 123 women aged 15-44who became pregnant after being diagnosed with breast cancer.During a median of 10.7 years of follow-up, 39% experiencedrecurrent breast cancer and 15% died.¹

The study shows that pregnancy is uncommon afterbreast cancer; only 4.8% of women aged 15-44 diagnosed withbreast cancer became pregnant during the study period and 2.6%had a live birth.¹ The study adds . . . [Full text of this article]

Emily Banks, associate professor¹, Gillian Reeves, staff scientist²

¹ National Centre for Epidemiology and Population Health, Australian National University, ACT 0200, Australia, ² Cancer Research UK Epidemiology Unit, University of Oxford, Oxford OX3 7LF

emily.banks@anu.edu.au

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