2 infants inhaled cancer cells from mothers during birth Yasemin Saplakoglu © Provided by Live Science A baby s hand resting on a mother s hand.
Two infants in Japan may have developed lung cancer after inhaling cancer cells from their mothers at birth, according to a new case report.
About 1 in 1,000 babies are born to mothers who have cancer, but only about one in 500,000 of these newborns develops cancer from their mother. Though these cases are extremely rare, researchers had known that the transfer can happen if cancer cells, traveling in the mother s blood, get into the placenta.
Now, researchers in Japan have identified a previously unknown route of transmission: Two infants who were born to mothers with cervical cancer may have developed lung cancer after aspirating tumor cells that were present in the amniotic fluid, secretions or blood from the cervix, the authors wrote in a case study published Jan. 7 in The New England Journal of Medicine.
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