Pregnancy

Advice on mole pregnancy/cancer

01/19/2000

Question:

I am writing a paper for school about a mole pregnancy that my mother had. This molar pregnancy turned into a cancer for my mother. She was eventually cured using chemotherapy. I have been asked to get an experts advise about the topic in general. Some of the questions I have are: How common is this type of cancer? How lethal is the cancer? When was the chemotherapy developed to fight this cancer? If she had been diagnosed with this type of cancer 20 years ago, would the outcome of her disease been different? Have their been any recent advances in medical technolodgy to cure this cancer?
Thank you for your help!!!

Answer:

I am happy to hear your mother is doing well. I`ll give you some basic information about molar pregnancy (aka gestational trophoblastic disease). Further information can be found in any basic gynecology textbook such as Comprehensive Gynecology by Drogemueller, Herbst, Mishell and Stenchever.
Molar pregnancies occur approximately 1 in 1500 pregnancies and occur more commonly in teenagers and women over 35. It is basically a tumor of the placenta and used to be fatal in most instances. In the 1960`s, a chemotherapy drug called Methotrexate was used and now, with modifications in the treatment, the cure rate is above 95%.
If your mother developed this cancer 20 years ago, she may have died. The use of the drug Methotrexate, the ability to detect the tumor by measuring a horomone in the blood called hCG and creating referral hospitals specifically for the treatment of these tumors are the major advances in the treatment of molar pregnancy.
I hope this helps.

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Response by:

Arthur T. Ollendorff, MD
Associate Professor of Obstetrics and Gynecology
Department of Obstetrics & Gynecology
College of Medicine
University of Cincinnati