PMA affects approximately 1 in 30 births in France.
In France, 1 in 30 children are born by medically assisted procreation, also called ART or PMA. ART techniques such as artificial insemination or in vitro fertilization represent real hope for many couples facing difficulties or the impossibility of procreating naturally and who wish to become parents. For the first time, researchers from Inserm and the scientific interest group Epi-Phare (ANSM/Cnam) have published the results of a study aimed at comparing the cancer risk of children conceived by PMA to that of children designed in a natural way. The results are astonishing.
L’study published on May 3 in the journal JAMA Network Open covered more than 8.5 million children born between 2010 and 2021 in France, 3% of whom were born through medically assisted procreation: 60,106 children were born after artificial insemination, 133,965 after transfer of fresh embryos and 66,165 after transfer of frozen embryos following IVF conventional or by ICSI (intracytoplasmic sperm injection). All children were followed until a median age of almost 7 years. During follow-up, 9,256 children including 292 children conceived by AMP developed cancer. The study does not show no increase in overall cancer risk in these children compared to children conceived “naturally”, which is “reassuring”. On the other hand, “a slight increase in leukemia risk has been observed in children conceived by IVF or ICSI. This increase is very small, of the order of one additional case per 5,000 newborns conceived by IVF or ICSI who have reached the age of 10.“, indicate the French researchers. The mechanism involved has not been identified.
As a reminder, leukemia is a form of blood cancer that causes anemia. It is characterized by the production of a large number of immature white blood cells which, if they leave the bone marrow and circulate in the blood, can invade all organs. There are several types affecting between 9,000 and 10,000 people each year in France. Leukemia represents 29% of cases of cancer diagnosed in children under 15 years old according to the National Cancer Institute.
All of this data still remains limited and requires continued research over the longer term, the researchers would like to point out. It is also necessary to continue research efforts to understand what mechanisms linked to ART techniques or fertility disorders in parents could induce an increase in the risk of leukemia, if this is confirmed.