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ORLANDO, FLA. -- Women who have been treated for breast cancer can later become pregnant without triggering a recurrence of the disease, based on follow-up data from 444 women with a history of breast cancer.
Many physicians tell breast cancer patients that pregnancy is not a good idea, but it did not appear to pose a risk, Ruby T. Senie, Ph.D., said while presenting a poster at the annual meeting of the American Association for Cancer Research.
In the series she reviewed, the adjusted risk of recurrent disease was the same during an average follow-up of about 15 years whether or not patients later become pregnant. The risk of recurrence was even lower if women waited before becoming pregnant for at least 14 months from the time of the initial diagnosis (20% vs. 55%).
A 14-month delay may "enable the patient's immune system to recover" following breast cancer treatment, allowing the immune system to destroy tumor cells that dispersed during treatment, suggested Dr. Senie, an epidemiologist and professor of clinical public health at Columbia University in New York.
The ...
Source: HighBeam Research, Wait 14 months: pregnancy does not boost breast ca...