Complications of blood cancers make termination advisable at early stages of pregnancy
Lymphoma is the fourth most common cancer in pregnancy, affecting one in 6000 pregnancies. Non-Hodgkin lymphoma, acute leukaemia, and other blood cancers, while also rare, can also occur in pregnancy. The need for urgent chemotherapy and the increased risk of blood clots during pregnancy, which is enhanced in blood cancers, mean that it is advisable to terminate a pregnancy if it is in its early stages to protect the health of the mother. However cancers discovered later in pregnancy can be treated. The issues around blood cancers in pregnancy are discussed in the third paper of The Lancet Series on pregnancy in cancer, written by Dr Benjamin Brenner, Department of Hematology and Bone Marrow Transplantation, Rambam Health Care Campus, Haifa, Israel, and colleagues.