Ontrafelen van de genotoxiciteit van prenatale blootstelling aan chemotherapie

Though rare, cancer in pregnancy is becoming more frequent due to the trend to postpone pregnancies until a later age. In large-scale clinical studies, we showed that chemotherapy given during pregnancy has no adverse effect on the short-term health of the infants. Yet, these children appear to be more often small for their gestational age, have a lower verbal IQ and increased chance of wearing glasses at the age of 6. Long-term health effects of prenatal chemotherapy exposure are still unknown. Given the known genotoxic effects of chemotherapy and their ability to cross the placenta, it could be speculated that chemotherapy exerts DNA damage in the fetus. This could lead to potential deleterious effects later in life, such as cancer, fertility problems or other diseases. Based on my preliminary data, pointing towards genetic DNA damage in newborns born to mothers treated with antenatal chemotherapy, I here propose, at the single cell level, an in-depth evaluation of the genome-wide presence of chromosomal alterations and mutations in cord blood of pregnant cancer patients treated with chemotherapy. Together with the ongoing clinical assessments, the results from this innovative study will represent an important milestone in the large research context of studying the safety profile of chemotherapy treatment in pregnant cancer patients.