[Cancer and pregnancy]

During the last decades, our ideas on the cancer-pregnancy association have been radically altered. Induced abortion, which has long been considered a prerequisite to successful treatment of cancer in such cases, is now performed only if requested by a fully informed mother or if embryotoxic chemotherapy is required. Many authors disagree that pregnancy has detrimental effects on cancer and believe that this only applies to breast cancers with axillary lymph mode involvement. Epidemiologists have shown that obstetrical factors are closely related to the risks of breast, endometrial and ovarian cancers. In some cancers, particularly in children and young adults, cure cannot be considered complete it has been obtained at the cost of infertility. To preserve fertility without reducing the prospects of cure is one of the major objectives of treatment in young cancerous patients.