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Healthy Pregnancy Following Herceptin
Cancer patients can take Herceptin during pregnancy and still have a healthy baby. According to a case study published in the journal Reproductive Toxicology (February), a 32-year-old woman who took Herceptin (trastuzumab) for the first 24 weeks of her pregnancy gave birth to a healthy girl who, at two months of age, showed no signs of medical abnormalities.
Breast cancer occurs in one in 3,000 pregnancies every year, and that number is expected to rise as women increasingly delay conception. Herceptin is a common treatment for Her-2 positive breast cancer. There have been three other cases reported in which women received Herceptin during their pregnancies. In all three cases, the babies were born healthy.
Since there are no well-controlled studies, pregnant women should take Herceptin only if the potential benefit to the mother outweighs the potential risk to the fetus.
