United States: New research reveals that women who have undergone stem cell treatments for blood cancers or conditions like sickle cell disease can successfully bring a pregnancy to term.
This study challenges the common belief that women who have had “allogeneic hematopoietic cell transplantation” (alloHCT) are generally unable to have safe pregnancies. The findings suggest that with appropriate medical care, these women can achieve successful pregnancies despite previous treatments for their illnesses
Understanding AlloHCT Impact on Fertility
However, the results of this particular study shows that female alloHCT recipients can get successful and safe pregnancies concluded by the study author Dr. Katja Sockel. She’s a senior physician in Germany.
As the researchers explained that an alloHCT involves in taking these stem cells from a healthy donor and implanting them into a patient who has conditions such as blood cancers or sickle cell disease.
Study Shows Lower Pregnancy Rates, Manageable Outcomes
These kind of transplants come with risks, which includes the long-term use of immune-suppressing medications and the before use (in cancer patients) of radiation or high-dose chemotherapies. These can all threaten a woman’s fertility.
“Fertility is a very important topic for young female patients,” Sockel explained in a journal news release. “Some patients even opt out of receiving certain treatments because of concerns about fertility. For young adult cancer survivors especially, the return to a normal life includes family planning.”
Complications in Post-Transplant Pregnancies
So, the pregnancy could really be out of the reach for these patients?
To find out, Sockel’s looked at data from the German Registry for Stem Cell Transplantation. They calculated pregnancy and birth rates, as well as numerous risk factors, for 2,654 female patients who’d undergone alloHCT between the ages of 18 and 40.
Of that particular group 50 woman have reported the 74 pregnancies and 57 of which resulted in the live births, with a median time from the transplantation of the first pregnancy of 4.7 years according to the journal news release.
Conclusion: Hope for Young Cancer Survivors
Pregnancy was more likely if the woman was between the ages of 18 and 35 at the time of her stem cell transplant, and pregnancies occurred at an average age of just under 30.
Pregnancy rates were still low, about six times lower than that of German women without such medical histories, the team noted.
There are some complication sometimes which are linked to the pregnancies among the women who got stem cell transplants and most notably vascular issues such as preeclampsia edema and hypertension.