Children born through assisted reproduction do not need to worry about facing any increased risk of cancer – at least while they are children, according to a major new study.
Researchers have tracked more than 100,000 of these children up to the age of 15 to check there was no link with childhood cancer.
The British research team says that rates of cancer were "strikingly" similar among children born through in vitro fertilisation and those born normally.
There was a small increased risk of two types of rare cancer affecting the liver and bones – but this did not lead to overall increased risk, according to the report in the New England Journal of Medicine.
Researcher Dr Alastair Sutcliffe, a paediatrician at Great Ormond Street Hospital, London, UK, said there would be follow-up research as the children got older.
He said: “These results are reassuring for parents who’ve had children in this way or are thinking about using it to conceive. Up until now it’s been difficult to study the link between using IVF techniques and childhood cancer – which is thankfully a relatively rare event.
"Our study is the largest of its kind to date to look at this link and bigger than all previous studies combined."
Williams, C et al. Cancer Risk among Children Born after Assisted Conception. New England Journal of Medicine 6 November 2013; doi:10.1056/NEJMoa1301675
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