Reproductive System & Sexual Disorders: Current Research
Open Access

The Link between IVF Children and Cancer: What Do We Know So Far?

Bengt Källén^1*, Orvar Finnström², Karl-Gösta Nygren³ and Petra Otterblad Olausson⁴

¹Tornblad Institute, University of Lund, SE-223 62 Lund, Sweden

²Department of Paediatrics, University Hospital, SE-581 85 Linköping, Sweden

³Institute for Medical Epidemiology and Biostatistics, Karolinska Institute, SE-171 77 Stockholm, Sweden

⁴Department of Statistics, Monitoring and Analyses, National Board of Health and Welfare, SE-106 30 Stockholm, Sweden

Corresponding Author:

Professor Bengt Källén
Tornblad Institute, Biskopsgatan 7
SE-223 62 Lund, Sweden
Tel: +46-46-222 7536
Fax: +46-46-222 4226
E-mail: [email protected]

Received Date: June 07, 2012; Accepted Date: July 02, 2012; Published Date: July 04, 2012

Citation: Källén B, Finnström O, Nygren KG, Olausson PO (2012) The Link between IVF Children and Cancer: What Do We Know So Far? Reprod Sys Sexual Disorders S5:004. doi:10.4172/2161-038X.S5-004

Copyright: © 2012 Källén B, et al. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

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Most studies on the risk for childhood cancer after in vitro fertilization (IVF) found no increased risk. These studies were, however, underpowered to identify a mild or moderate increase in risk. A large study from Sweden found an about 40% increased cancer risk among IVF children which reached statistical significance. This review summarizes characteristics of women undergoing IVF and their children which could possibly influence childhood cancer risk. No major confounding factor was found but some neonatal characteristics may be intermediaries for the increased risk. Further studies are needed to verify or reject the moderate risk increase. Large materials are needed in order to investigate the contribution of the neonatal morbidity which follows IVF. Some rare tumour forms which have been suggested to occur at an increased rate after IVF also need to be studied further.