Cancer Passed Mother To Child Via Vaginal Delivery

Published: Jan. 15, 2021, 7:05 p.m.

 

Vidcast:  https://youtu.be/ZFWgbAtZs9A

 

In two cases, cancers in a mother’s cervix were passed to their newborns during a vaginal delivery.  These reports from Japanese pediatric oncologists appeared in a recent New England Journal of Medicine.

 

One mother was belatedly diagnosed with metastatic squamous cell-neuroendocrine cervical cancer 3 months following her delivery, and her child developed a neuroendocrine carcinoma just prior to a second birthday.  The second mother was found to have a cervical adenocarcinoma, and her child developed a lung adenocarcinoma at age 6.  Genetic studies demonstrated link between maternal and child cancers.

 

Pregnant women with known or suspected cancerous or precancerous cervical or vaginal lesions should opt for c-sections.

 

https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa2030391

 

#cancer #cervical #vaginal #transmission