New research by Dana-Farber Cancer Institute investigators has encouraging news for young women who have survived breast cancer and want to have children. The study, which tracked nearly 200 young women treated for breast cancer, found that the majority of those who tried to conceive during a median of 11 years after treatment were able to become pregnant and give birth to a child. The findings, to be presented at the 2024 Annual Meeting of the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO), are particularly noteworthy because they answer several questions left open by previous studies of pregnancy and live-birth rates among breast cancer survivors, the study authors say.
Earlier studies were limited because they included select subgroups of patients, followed patients for a relatively short period of time, and didn't ask participants, during the study period, if they had attempted pregnancy. This study was designed to address those gaps by tracking pregnancy and live birth rates among a group of breast cancer survivors and patients who indicated they'd attempted to conceive following their cancer diagnosis." Ann Partridge, MD, MPH, study's senior author, founder and director of the Program for Young Adults with Breast Cancer at Dana-Farber The patients in the study were participants in the Young Women's Breast Cancer Study, which is tracking the health of a group of women diagnosed with breast cancer at or under age 40.
Of 1,213 eligible participants, 197 reported an attempt o.
