Children born after medically assisted procreation (ART) do not develop more cancer than others, except leukemia, where a very slight additional risk was observed, underlines a large study published on Friday, May 3.
This study, which covers more than 8.5 million children born in France between 2010 and 2021, is one of the largest carried out to date on the subject.
Scientists from Inserm and the EPI-PHARE scientific interest group (ANSM/Cnam), together with experts in medically assisted procreation (PMA), published their results in the journal JAMA Network Open.
No more risks in children due to assisted reproduction
The idea was to compare the cancer risk of children conceived through assisted reproduction with that of children conceived naturally.
“PMA techniques are quite recent and many studies have so far shown quite heterogeneous results; it was necessary to complement the existing information,” Rosemary Dray Spira, epidemiologist and deputy director of EPI-PHARE, explained to AFP.
The scientists used data from the National Health Data System. Among the cohort followed, up to a mean age of 6.7 years, there were 260,236 children (3%) conceived by AMP. During this follow-up, 9,256 children, including 292 children conceived by AMP, developed cancer.
The risk of cancer, all types combined, was no higher in these children than in those conceived naturally, the study notes.
“Slightly increased risk” in children conceived through IVF
However, “a slight increased risk of leukemia was observed” in children conceived through in vitro fertilization (IVF).
“Of every 20,000 children between 0 and 10 years old, around 10 will suffer from leukemia in the general population; according to our estimates, of the children born by IVF there will be between 13 and 14 years old, so the additional risk is very rare,” ”Rosemary Dray Spira stressed.
In comparison, the risk of infant mortality is higher for all babies: 74 deaths are recorded for every 20,000 births.
At the moment, scientists cannot explain whether the slight increase observed is “related to the ART techniques themselves, to parental infertility factors, or to a combination of both,” acknowledged Patricia Fauque, director of the AMP Center in Dijon.
The researchers acknowledged that more research will be needed to identify the mechanisms underlying this increase.
“Our concern is to understand better and better the determinants of the appearance of these cancers,” said Jacqueline Clavel, research director at Inserm.
Source: BFM TV
