New Study: IVF Conception Doesn’t Seem to Raise Kids’ Cancer Risk
Posted by Deborah Simmons on Nov 11, 2013 in Donor Eggs, Donor Sperm, Infertility, Surrogacy | Comments Off on New Study: IVF Conception Doesn’t Seem to Raise Kids’ Cancer RiskAnd a big thank you to MDLinx (11/8/2013). There’s good new for parents of children conceived through IVF:
IVF Conception Doesn’t Seem to Raise Kids’ Cancer Risk HealthDay 11/08/2013
British researchers followed more than 100,000 children for 17 years. In a reassuring new finding, there appears to be no extra cancer risk among children born after assisted conception. More than 5 million children worldwide have been born through in vitro fertilization (IVF). However, concerns that the manipulation of sperm and egg might make these children more prone to cancer prompted the British researchers to investigate. However, the risk to IVF–conceived children was found to be “the same as naturally conceived children,” said lead researcher Dr. Alastair Sutcliffe, a specialist in general pediatrics at the University College London. “This is a promising sign for their future health as they grow into adult life,” he said. “This study, which is bigger than all the existing studies, has a powerful and reassuring message to families, fertility specialists and the public,” Sutcliffe added. “Namely that in a near 100 percent coverage of 106,000 children conceived with IVF, the rate of childhood cancer was almost identical to that of the naturally conceived children over the same time frame.” Although the overall risk of cancer did not rise for these children, the incidence of two less common types of cancer was higher than expected. A U.S expert was pleased with the findings, which were published Nov. 7 in the New England Journal of Medicine.
