Breast cancer during pregnancy

Breast cancer is one of the most common cancers during pregnancy with the frequency approaching one in 3000 pregnancies. Pregnancy-associated breast cancer is defined as breast cancer that occurs during pregnancy or within one year of delivery. A challenging situation emerges for all persons involved - patient, family and medical care workers - since two lives are at risk with contradicting priorities.Methods This study was a comprehensive literature review performed through searches in databases such as Medline, PubMed, Science Direct, Scopus, and Google Scholar using the terms Breast Cancer, Pregnancy, Cancer treatment .Findings As the breast changes with pregnancy, these changes pose some challenges to the diagnosis, monitoring and treatment of breast cancer. Thus, pregnant breast cancer patients often present with an advanced disease stage. Breast cancer treatment is possible during pregnancy. The treatment plan needs to adhere as closely as possible to standardized protocols for nonpregnant patients, with some considerations to minimize fetal exposure and risks. This concerns mainly limiting radiation exposure and timing of chemotherapy to start in the second trimester. According results of studies no congenital malformation, stillbirth or intrauterine growth restrictions were observed in fetuses whose mothers received chemotherapy during pregnancy.Conclusion The need for prompt therapy often presents a clinical dilemma of considerable magnitude as there is always a conflict between optimal maternal therapy and the resultant risks imposed on fetal well-being. Treatment options depend on the patient’s condition as well as on the gestational age at presentation. In a multidisciplinary approach, an optimal therapy schedule should be assessed depending on these conditions.

Keywords:

Breast Cancer , Pregnancy , Cancer treatment