News on Today as Sugary mentioned earlier on:
Ovary drugs may increase risk of leukaemia in children: Researchers
04:45 AM Apr 25, 2012
LONDON - French researchers say they have found a link between drugs given to stimulate the ovaries of women before they have fertility treatment and an increased risk of leukaemia in their children.
Initial findings, presented at the Childhood Cancer 2012 conference in London yesterday, found that the use of ovarian-stimulation drugs was associated with more than double (2.6-fold) the risk of a child developing the most common form of childhood leukaemia called acute lymphoblastic leukaemia (ALL).
They had a 2.3-fold risk of developing a rare cancer, acute myeloid leukaemia.
There was also an increased risk for the children of women who had struggled for more than a year to become pregnant and then conceived naturally without the help of drugs.
They were 50 per cent more likely to develop ALL, which suggests that the issue is not only about drugs but may also be connected with lower fertility.
The study found no link between leukaemia and the fertility procedures themselves.
Researchers, however, found no increase in the risk in children whose mothers had undergone IVF - even though almost all such women will have received ovarian-stimulation drugs - or those who were artificially inseminated.
A total of 2,445 French children and their mothers took part in the study, comprising 764 children who had been diagnosed with leukaemia and 1,681 who were free of the disease.
The mothers were asked if they had taken more than a year to conceive a child, and questioned about the treatments they had received. Agencies
