my step daughter was just diagnosed with hodgkins disease and she is 13 weeks pregnant, will she have to give up the baby to recieve treatment?

Worried Kathy-
It's very common for young women of child-bearing age to get Hodgkin's-- or rather, women tend to get Hodgkin's during their child-bearing years, so your daughter's situation is nothing new to medicine. However, this doesn't mean there's a ready-made answer. Instead, difficult things like this are handled in a case--by-case kind of way, according to the specifics of her situation.

13 weeks is what, first trimester? If she were third, then treatment could safely be delayed until delivery, but in the first trimester there's too much time. Doctors will have to weigh a wide variety of factors ---- her specific diagnosis, i.e. does she have bulky sites that will require radiation? does she have B symptoms, is hers considered favorable diagnosis, etc --- and then there are some scattered studies that suggest that the chemo drugs don't affect the fetus, but these are small studies, and I wouldn't bank on them.

In short, she may have to give up the baby. She may not. No clear cut answer, it's something she'll have to discuss with her doctors and family. I know that answer sucks, but it's the truth.

Ross