Two cases in Japan ‘caught’ a rare medical phenomenon in Japan ‘cancer’ in their mothers.
They probably inhaled cancer cells from their mothers, each of whom had unconsciously had cervical cancer.
The children developed lung cancer every year later.
A baby has to go through the mother’s cervix during childbirth and doctors think that cancer cells find their way into the amniotic fluid that surrounds the baby, who then inhales the cells as they open their mouths to take their first breath and cry.
It is extremely rare – only 20 cases have been documented – and the children were not diagnosed nearly two and ten years after their births, scientists reported in a case study New England Journal of Medicine, published this month.
In rare cases, a baby can inhale cervical cancer cells that have floated in the amniotic fluid in the birth canal, which can cause lung cancer years later.
The scientists estimate that about one in every 500,000 mothers with cancer transmits the disease to her baby during childbirth.
And only one in 1,000 mothers has cancer in the first place during pregnancy.
Cervical cancer is the fourth most common cancer for women, affecting approximately 570,000 women annually and killing 311,000 worldwide.
And women are diagnosed at the average age of 50, and most cases occur between 35 and 44 years of age.
Doctors recommend that women start screening at age 25 through physical examinations and pap smears, but because cancer is not common in the most fertile years of women’s life, it may not be the best of those trying to conceive. .
And nearly half of all pregnancies – about 45 percent – are still unplanned.
Thus, women are often not screened during a prenatal examination before becoming pregnant.
Without it, the cancer is difficult to detect.
Even if a woman becomes pregnant while having cancer or is diagnosed with cancer during her pregnancy, it is very rare for cancer to develop in her baby.
But there are, of course, exceptions – as was the case for the two children described in the case report.
There is no way to prove without a doubt that cancer was transmitted from the mothers to the babies, but there were some signs.
First, the location of mothers’ cancer made it easier to pass on.
The cervix is located at the bottom of the uterus and at the top of the vaginal opening.
A baby develops in the womb, surrounded by amniotic fluid, it is like liquid insulation to protect the baby, and provides it with water, nutrients and other chemicals that form the mother.
While in the womb, a baby does not breathe like adults. Instead, it absorbs oxygen through the umbilical cord and placenta.
Even if tumors end up in the amniotic fluid from the cervix, there is not much chance of transferring to the baby.
But when the baby comes through the birth canal, there is a short opportunity to inhale the amniotic fluid from near the cervix so that tumor cells can enter the lungs.
The first child was diagnosed with lung cancer about 23 months after birth when he had a persistent cough.
After several rounds of chemotherapy, immunotherapy and surgery to remove a lobe from one of his lungs, the child finally got remission and was cancer free a year later.
Unfortunately, his mother’s cancer spread in her body and she eventually died.
But before that time, scientists had sequenced genes in the mother and child’s tumors, and seen a clear link between them, suggesting that the cancer was probably transmitted from mother to baby.
The mother of the second child died when he was just two years old.
He showed no signs of illness for another four years, but at the age of six he developed chest pain and was also diagnosed with lung cancer.
Genomic sequences showed that his tumor was also linked to the mother and that the tumor was positive for HPV, the STI, which is a common cause of cervical cancer – but not lung tumors.
This evidence collectively suggested that he probably ‘contracted’ his mother’s cancer.
The boy had to have one of his lungs removed, but he was alive and cancer-free 15 months later.