Pregnancy helps women endure.

• Position: Breast Cancer Survival - Brief article

Long associated with a worse outcome, researchers have discovered that women treated for breast cancer while pregnant, in fact, have improved disease-free survival and a trend for improved overall survival compared to nonpregnant females treated for the disease.

"Until now, older registry studies showed that breast cancer patients treated while pregnant had a worse outcome," states Jennifer Litton, assistant professor in the Department of Breast Medical Oncology at The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, Houston. "However, in the past, these patients weren't always treated consistently with standard-of-care chemotherapy and often delayed their therapy until after delivery."

In 1992, Richard Theriault, professor in the Department of Breast Medical Oncology, opened the first protocol examining a chemotherapeutic regimen for the management of these patients. He later published seminal studies proving that the regimen was safe for both pregnant mother and unborn child; it since has been adopted as the standard of care.

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