IVF: Frozen embryos linked with higher risk for childhood cancers
Large Danish study suggests the issue is specific to frozen embryo techniques
When frozen embryos are used during IVF, the offspring have a slightly higher risk for certain types of cancer, evidence from Denmark suggests.
Analysing health records of more than a million Danish children, researchers found that babies conceived through assisted reproduction, involving frozen embryo transfer were more than twice as likely to develop childhood cancer, particularly leukaemia and neuroblastoma, according to the report in the Journal of the American Medical Association.
The incidence of childhood cancer among children born to women with no fertility issues was 17.5 per 100,000.
But for children born as a result of frozen embryo transfer, the incidence was 44.4 per 100,000, which translated to a 2.4-fold higher risk.
