Pregnant women with breast cancer can be safely treated with a common chemotherapy combination during both the second and third trimesters, researchers report.

The majority of babies will not experience significant short-term complications linked to maternal treatment, they added.

“Further follow-up of the children is required to determine the potential long-term effects of this exposure,” wrote researchers at the M.D. Anderson Cancer Center, in Houston. “However, our short-term data are reassuring.”

The study was published in the Aug. 7 online edition of Cancer.

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