Pregnancy-associated cancers may be linked to an elevated 5-year mortality risk, but the risk varies by tumor site and time of diagnosis, suggests a population-based cohort study.

Based on the available data on ovarian cancer during pregnancy, we performed a review and meta-analysis to evaluate the efficacy and safety of platinum-based chemotherapy against ovarian cancer during pregnancy.

Matteo Lambertini outlines the key take-home messages of their meta-analysis evaluating the reproductive and disease-specific outcomes of pregnancy in breast cancer survivors.

He added: “Our findings confirm that pregnancy after breast cancer should not be discouraged, even for women with ER-positive cancer.

Two independent studies shed light on the effects of pregnancy during cancer, one finding that pregnancy does not adversely affect the survival of women with breast cancer and the other showing an association between maternal cancer and an increased risk for stillbirth and neonatal mortality.

Women who inadvertently receive the quadrivalent human papillomavirus vaccine during pregnancy are not at increased risk for adverse pregnancy outcomes over women with no such exposure, results of a Danish nationwide cohort study show.

The recommended dose of belzutifan is 120 mg given orally once a day and the agent carries a boxed warning specifying that it can render some hormonal contraceptives ineffective, while its use during pregnancy may cause embryo–fetal harm.

“[A]lthough successful pregnancy after [breast cancer] is possible both in women with and without FP, FP is associated with significantly higher rates of post-[breast cancer] live births and use of ART [assisted reproductive technology] treatments, without any deleterious association with all-cause survival,” the investigators report in JAMA Oncology .

A subgroup analysis of women who had a pregnancy and subsequent delivery during the enrollment period in both the infertile (34.2%) and non-infertile (20.0%) groups showed that the risk for cancer overall remained significantly higher in the infertile group, but between group differences were diminished for uterine, ovarian, lung, and liver and gallbladder cancers.

The use of hormonal contraceptives just before and during pregnancy may significantly increase the risk for childhood non-lymphoid leukemia, Danish researchers report.

Children conceived using assisted reproductive technology do not have an increased cancer risk relative to either the general population or naturally conceived children of women with impaired fertility, shows a Dutch study with a long follow-up.

This suggests that although “low concentrations of antimüllerian hormone do not preclude pregnancy in the short term, they probably do indicate a reduced interval to menopause and thus a shortened duration of opportunity to achieve pregnancy in the longer term,” Anderson et al remark in The Lancet Oncology .

The birth rate for women who are relapse-free after treatment for Hodgkin lymphoma has risen in recent years, becoming comparable with that of the general population regardless of disease stage or treatment.

The authors note, however, that the level of protection is lower for women older than 26 years and that longer follow-up is required “to monitor the impact on cervical cancer, occurrence of rare harms and pregnancy outcomes.”

Although this will not cast doubt on the potential validity of conservative management, as a recurrence may arise shortly and will then have a poor prognosis, we should not “authorize” the patient/couple to attempt a potential pregnancy before 2 years after FSS in clear-cell disease if we do not want to be faced with the diagnosis of a metastatic recurrence in a pregnant patient.

“This may be partly explained by cardiovascular or pulmonary impairments due to chemotherapy, which may impact blood volume regulation and adversely affect pregnancy outcomes,” write Anderson et al in JAMA Oncology .