Baby born free of cancer gene

January 9, 2009

dren

1 hour, 53 minutes ago

LONDON (AFP) - A mother who is the first woman in Britain to have a

baby selected free of a gene which causes breast cancer has given

birth succesfully, doctors said Friday.

" The mother and her little girl are doing very well, " said University

College London (UCL) of the baby, who grew from an embryo screened to

ensure it did not contain the faulty BRCA 1 gene.

The baby's 27-year-old mother, who wants to remain anonymous, decided

to take the step because several of her husband's close female

relatives suffered from breast cancer.

Any daughter born with the BRCA 1 gene has an 80 per cent risk of

developing breast cancer and a 60 per cent chance of developing

ovarian cancer -- as well as a 50 percent risk of passing on the

anomaly to their own children.

Doctors said the parents were relieved to have a guarantee that the

faulty gene would not be passed to their daughter.

" This little girl will not face the spectre of developing this

genetic form of breast cancer or ovarian cancer in her adult life, "

said Serhal, head of the Assisted Conception Unit at UCL

Hospital.

" The parents will have been spared the risk of inflicting this

disease on their daughter. The lasting legacy is the eradication of

the transmission of this form of cancer that has blighted these

families for generations, " he said.

The mother said in June: " We felt that, if there was a possibility of

eliminating this for our children, then that was a route we had to go

down. "

The procedure was carried out using a technique known as pre-

implantation genetic diagnosis which has already been used here to

screen embryos resulting from in vitro fertilisation for disorders

like cystic fibrosis.

It was given the green light in Britain in 2006.

The procedure is still relatively rare but has been used to screen

embryos for breast cancer in the United States and Belgium.

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