It is extremely rare for a pregnant woman with cancer to transmit it to her newborn child, but thirty cases have been found. Researchers have now found DNA evidence to confirm this theory.
After analyzing a case where the mother transmitted leukemia to her child, Japanese and British researchers applied DNA techniques to confirm that the disease was from the mother. They discovered that cancer cells from the mother were transmitted to the child.
The study showed that both the mother and the child carried the same genetic mutation of the disease, but the baby did not inherit the gene from the mother.
In theory, the immune system should stop the cancer, but this time they found that the child harboured a missing DNA fragment that prevents the child from fighting off the disease.