Good news for all parents and future parents of children conceived by assisted reproduction (ART): your offspring are not at greater risk than others of developing cancer. Indeed, researchers at University College London have looked into the dangers associated with this technique, which overcomes certain difficulties in conceiving.
They did a big study in Great Britain, published by the medical journal The New England Journal of Medicine, in over 106,013 children born after ART between 1992 and 2008. These volunteers were followed for an average of 6.6 years by monitoring how many of them developed cancer before the age of 15.
Conclusion: with 108 cases of cancer identified against the 109.7 initially predicted, MAP would therefore not be linked to an increase in the overall risk of cancer, “and in particular not to an increased risk of leukemia, neuroblastoma, retinoblastoma, central nervous system tumors or germ cell tumors, “reassure the scientists. Only two cancers are said to be slightly more frequent than in the general population: hepatoblastoma and rhabdomyosarcoma, malignant tumors common in children.
In France, 22,401 children were born in 2010 thanks to medically assisted procreation, i.e. one in 40 births, specifies the National Institute of Health and Medical Research (Inserm).
