MBR ISSUE 25 - low res all

ERC STORY
Malta Business Review
A standard cancer care
for pregnant women
By Dr Frédéric Amant
When cancer is diagnosed
in an expecting mother, the
decision whether or not to
start chemotherapy during
the pregnancy needs to
strike a delicate balance
between the well-being of
the mother and that of the
foetus. With ERC support, Dr
Frédéric Amant is developing
a standard, integrated
approach for cancer care for
pregnant women.
Cancer in pregnancy is increasingly
prevalent (1 to 2 in 2000 pregnancies in
Europe), largely because of the recent
trend to delay childbearing until a later
age. While there is not yet evidence about
the potential toxicity of chemotherapy
on the foetus, as a precaution, this type
of treatment has been largely avoided
for pregnant women. Such approach
generally led to delay in treatment,
termination of pregnancy or premature
induction of delivery.
In the last 50 years, drug regulation has
significantly evolved. However, pregnant
women and their foetuses remained out
of scope, due to the general reluctance of
pharmaceutical companies and expectant
mothers to engage in dedicated drug
trials. “This creates the need and the
opportunity to investigate the true
relationship between chemotherapy
and childbearing with the objective of
developing evidence-based rather than
opinion-based decision-making”, says Dr
Frédéric Amant from the KU Leuven, in
Belgium.
A pilot study led by Dr Amant back in
2012 showed that antenatal exposure
to chemotherapy could overall be
considered to be safe. This finding was
internationally recognized as a first step
towards a standard of care for women
with cancer during pregnancy. With an
ERC Consolidator grant and the support
of a multidisciplinary team of experts, Dr
Amant is now securing robust evidence
about the risk/safety profile for foetuses
under mothers’ chemotherapy:
PROJECT DETAILS
Researcher (PI): Dr Frédéric Amant
Host institution: Katholieke Universiteit Leuven,Belgium
Project: Cancer treatment during pregnancy: from fetal
safety to maternal efficacy, (CRADLE)
ERC call: Consolidator Grants , ERC-2014-CoG, panel
Max ERC funding: 2,000,000 €
Dr Amant: “The strength of our project
lies in the integrated approach to
this multifaceted problem of cancer
in pregnancy, with two innovative
methodological focus points: the use of
an international patient registry of young
women with cancer with a subregistry
of women with pregnancy-associated
breast cancer (the INCIP), along with
the consultation of extensive biobanks.
This allows for unprecedented largescale
clinical follow-up studies as well as
laboratory studies on patient biomaterial.”
In addition, Dr Amant and his team foresee
the application of cutting-edge models of
human placental research to investigate
the physiological basis of the placental
barrier function. The researchers hope the
study will be a major step forward to the
well-being of both mother and foetus in a
pregnancy complicated by cancer, leading
to the development of standard diagnostic
and therapeutic approaches during this
critical period. In addition, the findings
could provide substantial impetus to further
research in this emerging field. MBR
Image: ©Ann De Wulf
Researcher image: ©Rob Stevens
Duration: From 2015-10-01 until 2020-09-30
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