I had often heard as a nurse that prognosis was worse for pregnant women that had breast cancer. The exiting news from an international study, showed survival rates are the same when both groups receive the same treatment. It also shows that pregnant women with breast cancer should be treated according to standard practice. It also talks about the fact that chemo exposure during the second and third trimester did not congenital malformations. It also mentioned that babies are often born early in women with breast cancer because their physician asked them to so that they could proceed with the next form of therapy.. This study did not look at post partum patients . All of this is very interesting as we are all aware that during pregnancy your hormones are in super drive but it doesn't prove that those levels produce an adverse outcome on the breast cancer. It also proved that chemo starting at least in the second trimester seemed to be safe and maybe even better than waiting until the pregnancy was done. The most important outcome from this study is that cancer symptoms sometimes mimic pregnancy symptoms and therefore should not be ignored because the patient is pregnant. Finally I would like to restate that the final information that I found interesting is that pregnancy after treatment of breast cancer because of concerns for recurrence and death, is not supported even for the ER positive disease. Ongoing research is imperative to follow up on children born to women who where treated for breast cancer during the pregnancy. It is also important that we continue to get information on drugs that cross the placenta and the outcomes.
This information was very interesting and thought provoking, we continue to learn and grow and understand more and more and the day will come that we will look back at what breast cancer was as it will no longer be a threat in our lives, I