High-Dose Folic Acid During Pregnancy Tied to Cancer Risk in Kids
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Prenatal exposure to high-dose folic acid is associated with a greater than twofold increased risk for cancer in children of mothers with epilepsy, new data from a Scandinavian registry of more than 3 million pregnancies suggests. The increased risk for cancer did not change after considering other factors that could explain the risk, such as use of antiseizure medication (ASM). There was no increased risk for cancer in children of mothers without epilepsy who used high-dose folic acid.
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@jitendra Women with epilepsy are advised to take high doses of folic acid before and during pregnancy owing to the risk for congenital malformations associated with ASM. Whether high-dose folic acid is associated with increases in the risk for childhood cancer is unknown. To investigate, the researchers analyzed registry data from Denmark, Norway, and Sweden for 3.3 million children followed to a median age of 7.3 years. Among the 27,784 children born to mothers with epilepsy, 5934 (21.4%) were exposed to high-dose folic acid (mean dose, 4.3 mg), with 18 exposed cancer cases compared with 29 unexposed cancer — yielding an adjusted hazard ratio (aHR) of 2.7 (95% CI, 1.2 - 6.3).