Fetal cells help moms avoid breast cancer

SEATTLE, Oct. 3 (UPI) -- Fetal cells "transplanted" from a fetus to the mother, may protect the mother from breast cancer, Seattle researchers said.

Researchers at the University of Washington and Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center said the ability of cells from a growing fetus to take up long-term residence within its mother is a phenomenon called fetal microchimerism.

Fetal microchimerism has been implicated as a mechanism of autoimmune disease, it may also benefit mothers by putting the immune system on alert for malignant cells to destroy, lead author Dr. Vijayakrishna K. Gadi of the University of Washington, said.

The study of 82 women, 35 of whom had been diagnosed with breast cancer, had about two-thirds of the women giving birth to children and more than half had given birth to at least one son.

The researchers took blood samples from each participant and searched them for male DNA. They reasoned it is a relatively definitive matter to detect the male Y chromosome amid the mother’s native -- and obviously female -- cells within a blood sample.

The study, published in Cancer Research, found about 14 percent of all women in the breast cancer group had male DNA in their bloodstream compared to 43 percent of women in the non-breast cancer group.