International Federation of Gynecology and Obstetrics

Women suffering from cancer have the capacity to pass their illness onto their unborn child, a new study has shown.

Research conducted by the UK-based Institute of Cancer Research (ICR) has disputed the long-held supposition that the baby's immune system blocks the disease.

Scientists based their study on a 28-year-old Japanese woman, who seemingly eluded conventional biological theories when her leukaemic cells spread from the womb to her unborn daughter.

Both patients were afflicted with the same BCR-ABL1 mutated cancer gene.

Professor Mel Greaves, who led the study at ICR, said: "It appears that in this and, we presume, other cases of mother to offspring cancer, the maternal cancer cells did cross the placenta into the developing foetus and succeeded in implanting because they were invisible to the immune system."

Meanwhile, Dr David Grant, scientific director at Leukaemia Research, has claimed that "harnessing the power of the immune system" to first cure and then protect patients from leukaemia is one of his institution's "priority areas".