| ■ Child's Cells May Protect Mother Against Breast Cancer | 2007.10.09 |
| U.S. researchers say that having children may help reduce a woman's risk of breast cancer as a result of protective cells transferred from the fetus to the mother. The study by a team from the University of Washington and Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle included 35 women who'd been diagnosed with breast cancer and 47 who'd never had the disease. About 43 percent of the women in the non-breast cancer group had a child's DNA in their blood, compared with 14 percent of the women in the breast cancer group, Agence France-Presse reported. "My hypothesis was that maybe fetal cells can get into a mother and recognize a pre-cancer breast cancer cell and kill it before it becomes an active cancer," said lead author V.K. Gadi. He noted that fetal cells could remain in the mother for the rest of her life and help protect her against cancer, AFP reported. The study appears in the October issue of the journal Cancer Research. |