Researchers from Ben-Gurion University of the Negev (BGU) discovered that babies born to mothers who underwent fertility treatments are at increased risk of developing many types of pediatric cancers and tumors (neoplasms), such as leukemia, brain and spinal cord tumors, neuroblastomas, Wilms tumors, and lymphomas. The study, published in the March issue of the American Journal of Obstetrics & Gynecology, was a population-based cohort analysis of babies born in Israel’s Soroka University Medical Center between 1991 and 2013 with follow-up to age 18.
Eyal Sheiner, MD, PhD, professor and vice dean of the BGU Faculty of Health Sciences, member of its Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, and a physician at Soroka, said, “The research concludes that the association between IVF and total pediatric neoplasms and malignancies is significant.”
