Pregnancy safe for breast cancer survivors

Pregnancy safe for breast cancer survivors

Study quells fears that pregnancy can spark dangerous hormonal changes

By MARIA CHENG

BARCELONA, Spain — Women who survive breast cancer and have children afterwards don't

appear to be at any higher risk of dying from cancer, a new study says.

Doctors have long worried pregnancy might spark hormonal changes in breast cancer survivors that could spur the disease's return, and many breast cancer patients are counseled against getting pregnant after they recover.

In research presented Friday at a European breast cancer conference in Barcelona, experts said pregnancy in women who have been treated for breast cancer is safe and does not seem to be linked with the disease's recurrence.

Among women in the general population, those who have early and multiple pregnancies have a lower risk of getting breast cancer than women who don't.

Dr. Hatem Azim of the Institute Jules Bordet in Belgium and colleagues analyzed results from 14 previous trials that followed more than 1,400 pregnant women with a history of breast cancer. Those women became pregnant several months to several years after finishing treatment. Azim and colleagues compared those women to more than 18,000 women who had had breast cancer and were not pregnant.

"I hope this changes what doctors tell their patients," Azim said. "There's no reason to tell women who survive breast cancer not to get pregnant."

Azim and colleagues found that the women who got pregnant had a 42 percent lower risk of dying compared with breast cancer survivors who did not get pregnant. He said part of that benefit might be due to the fact that women who were naturally healthier were those that later had children.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/36036867/

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