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Assisted conception did not increase cancer risk in children
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Children born to parents who used assisted conception methods did not demonstrate an increased risk for cancer, according to results of a long-term study.
“This is reassuring for couples considering assisted conception, children conceived in this way, and their families and clinicians,” Carrie L. Williams, MB, BCh, of the Institute of Child Health at University College London, and colleagues wrote.
Williams and colleagues linked data on children born between 1992 and 2008 via assisted conception methods with data from the United Kingdom National Registry of Childhood Tumors to calculate the number of children who developed cancer before the age of 15.
Researchers then compared cancer rates from the cohort with population-based rates in Britain during the same time period.
Williams and colleagues identified 106,013 children born via assisted conception methods. Mean follow-up was 6.6 years, translating to 700,705 person-years of observation.
The researchers identified 108 cancers overall compared with an expected total of 109.7 (standardized incidence ratio=0.98; 95% CI, 0.81-1.19).
Researchers reported no increased risk for leukemia, neuroblastoma, retinoblastoma, central nervous system tumors, or renal or germ-cell tumors.
They observed a small increased risk for hepatoblastoma (SIR=3.64; 95% CI, 1.34-7.93) and rhabdomyosarcoma (SIR=2.62; 95% CI, 1.26-4.82).
Researchers calculated an absolute excess risk for hepatoblastoma of 6.21 cases per 1 million person-years and an absolute excess risk for rhabdomyosarcoma of 8.82 cases per 1 million person-years. The increased risk for hepatoblastoma was associated with low birth weight, researchers concluded.
“The weaker evidence that we present for increased risks of rare specific cancers needs further exploration to validate these findings and investigate potential causality,” Williams and colleagues wrote. “These increased risks could be chance findings, but possible alternative explanations include underlying parental infertility and mediation by either low birth weight or imprinting disorders.”
Disclosure: The researchers report no relevant financial disclosures.
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