Children born by assisted reproductive technology at higher risk of childhood cancer: JAMA

TAIWAN: A Taiwanese population-based cohort study published in JAMA has found that children born via the use of assisted reproductive technology (ART) may be at an increased risk of acquiring childhood malignancies.

It has become more common to have children through the use of assisted reproductive technologies (ART). These children could be more likely to experience epigenetic changes and unfavorable prenatal outcomes, which could lead to childhood malignancies. There is currently conflicting research regarding the link between ART conception and pediatric malignancies.

"There has never been a study that looked at how prenatal outcomes affect the link between the mode of conception and childhood malignancies", the authors wrote.

The authors aimed to ascertain the correlations between various methods of conception and childhood malignancies, as well as any potential roles that preterm birth and low birth weight may play in mediating these relationships.

For this study, the authors analyzed registry information on 2,308,016 Taiwanese eligible parent-child triads from January 2004 to December 2017. The mean ages of the fathers and mothers were 33.3 and 30.8 respectively. 52.1% of the kids were boys, 8.2% of them were born prematurely, and 7.4% had low birth weights. There were 1,880 children with childhood cancer in total.