How Might Pregnancy Immunize Against Breast Cancer? Journal Articles

abstract

• PROBLEM: This study investigated how pregnancy might protect against breast cancer. METHOD OF STUDY: A critical review of the literature was done.RESULTS/CONCLUSIONS: Support for an active role in pregnancy immunizing against breast cancer comes from case studies demonstrating a reciprocal correlation between pregnancy and breast cancer as well as recent experiments supporting the fetal antigen hypothesis that confirms the presence of a tumor‐specific antigen, MUC1, on both fetal and breast cancer tissues. Multiparous women also generate anti‐MUC1 major histocompatibility complex‐restricted cytotoxic T cell cytolytic activity against MUC1‐bearing tumor cell lines. Careful investigation of the fetal antigen hypothesis and tolerogenic mechanisms may lead to effective vaccination protocols against breast cancer and other cancers.

authors

• Botelho, Fernando
• Clark, David Alexander

status

• published 

publication date

• April 1998

has subject area

• Breast Neoplasms (MeSH)
• Female (MeSH)
• Humans (MeSH)
• Mucin-1 (MeSH)
• Pregnancy (MeSH)
• Vaccination (MeSH)

published in

• Early pregnancy : biology and medicine : the official journal of the Society for the Investigation of Early Pregnancy  Journal

keywords

• Breast Neoplasms
• Female
• Humans
• Mucin-1
• Pregnancy
• Vaccination

Digital Object Identifier (DOI)

• 10.1111/j.1600-0897.1998.tb00365.x

PubMed ID

• 9553653

start page

• 279

end page

• 283

volume

• 39

issue

• 4