Outcomes excellent in pregnant women with lymphoma

According to an encouraging abstract presented at the recent ASH meeting in San Diego, outcomes for pregnant patients with lymphoma are "excellent."

Researchers from the University of Massachusetts Medical School conducted a retrospective study on pregnancy outcomes in lymphoma, finding 82 such cases between 1998 and 2011 at nine major academic medical centers in the United States.

The median age of the pregnant women was 31.
The median gestation time at diagnosis was 24 weeks.
15% of patients were in their first trimester.

33 patients had B-cell non-Hodgkin's lymphoma.
10 patients had T-cell non-Hodgkin's lymphoma.
39 patients had Hodgkin's lymphoma (35 with nodular sclerosis; 2 with mixed cellularity, 2 not specified)

6 patients chose to terminate the pregnancy
28 patients chose to defer treatment until after delivery

That left 48 patients. 72% had a vaginal delivery, and 73% had a full-term delivery.

Induction of labor was a common complication, but fetal outcomes were good, and the mothers did just as well.

Researchers concluded that standard chemotherapy regimens created few complications, provided that they were modified to avoid anti-metabolites (a class of chemotherapeutic drugs that includes methotrexate).

Source: MedPageToday