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Cancer-screened baby born in UK
Source: Agencies |
January 10, 2009, Saturday
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THE first baby girl in Britain to have been screened before conception for a genetic form of breast cancer has been born, doctors said yesterday.
Doctors at University College Hospital in London (UCL) had created a number of embryos through In Vitro Fertilisation (IVF) for the baby's parents and screened them for the variant BRCA1 gene.
Women who carry this genetic variation have an 80-percent chance of developing breast cancer and a 60-percent chance of suffering ovarian cancer during their lifetime, and the couple's children were at very high risk of inheriting the gene.
However, carrying the gene does not make cancer inevitable.
"This little girl will not face the specter of developing this genetic form of breast cancer or ovarian cancer in her adult life," said Paul Serhal, Medical Director of the Assisted Conception Unit at UCL.
"The parents will have been spared the risk of inflicting this disease on their daughter. The lasting legacy is the eradication of the transmission of this form of cancer that has blighted these families for generations."
The mother and baby girl, who have not been identified, are doing very well.
Doctors at University College Hospital in London (UCL) had created a number of embryos through In Vitro Fertilisation (IVF) for the baby's parents and screened them for the variant BRCA1 gene.
Women who carry this genetic variation have an 80-percent chance of developing breast cancer and a 60-percent chance of suffering ovarian cancer during their lifetime, and the couple's children were at very high risk of inheriting the gene.
However, carrying the gene does not make cancer inevitable.
"This little girl will not face the specter of developing this genetic form of breast cancer or ovarian cancer in her adult life," said Paul Serhal, Medical Director of the Assisted Conception Unit at UCL.
"The parents will have been spared the risk of inflicting this disease on their daughter. The lasting legacy is the eradication of the transmission of this form of cancer that has blighted these families for generations."
The mother and baby girl, who have not been identified, are doing very well.
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