Home   >   News   >   Japan Study Team Confirms Mom-to-Baby Transmission of Cervical Cancer

Japan Study Team Confirms Mom-to-Baby Transmission of Cervical Cancer

By on January 7, 2021

Stock photo

According to a 12-member Japanese study team, confirmed cases of infant lung cancer were found as a result of a mom-to-baby transmission of cervical cancer during birth. The findings is the first time in the world.

Two cases of pediatric lung cancer were detected through sequencing of tumor and tissue samples extracted from a 23-month-old infant and a 6-year-old boy resulting from mother-to-infant transmission. The transmission was believed to have occurred after the boys ingested mother’s amniotic fluid containing cervical cancer cells in their first cries.

An article on the findings was published on the digital edition of the New England Journal of Medicine. The research team includes members of the National Cancer Center.

The Research team found that the DNA of cancer cells from the boys and their mothers included the same mutations between the mothers and the sons. The cancer cells in the boys did not contain the Y chromosome usually found in men.

One of the boys was treated with cancer immunotherapy Opdivo (generic name: nivolumab) while the other boy had his lung cancer surgically removed. Both mothers died, one during and the other after giving birth.

Chitose Ogawa, head of the Pediatric Onology Department of the National Cancer Center Hospital said, “Given that only one in a million children develops lung cancer, the case of the two boys “are very rare.”

“It’s important to prevent mothers from developing cervical cancer,” says Ogawa.

The main cause of cervical cancer is an infection with human papillomavirus, or HPV. However, most women infected with the sexually transmitted virus do not develop into cancer.

Taking HPV vaccinations before turning 17 years old will prevent women from developing cervical cancer. Regular checkups make it easier to find the cancer at an early stage.

Ayumu Arakawa, another team member from the same hospital department, believes that cancer cell transmission via amniotic fluid can be prevented through caesarian section.

Among other types of cancer, skin cancer is known to be transmissible from mothers to babies via blood passing through the placenta.

 

 

 

About Julie Wilson