A case/control study was conducted to determine a possible relationship between fetal loss and exposure to antineoplastic drugs among nurses employed in 17 Finnish hospitals between 1973 and 1980. The study was limited to 124 nurses for whom fetal losses occurred and detailed pregnancy data was available and their 321 matched comparisons. Exposures over the entire pregnancy period were not linked to fetal loss. However, a study of exposure to antineoplastic drugs during the first trimester was positively linked with fetal loss; women with first trimester exposure were more than twice as likely to experience fetal loss. Specific drugs were also identified as being positively associated with fetal loss, including cyclophosphamide (50180), doxorubicin (23214928), and vincristine (57227), but it was not possible to separate them as exposure to more than one of these drugs was high. Mean gestation was slightly shorter for fetal losses among exposed women as compared with fetal losses among unexposed women. The authors recommend that specific precautionary measures be developed for the handling of these toxic but extremely useful medical agents.
Links with this icon indicate that you are leaving the CDC website.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) cannot attest to the accuracy of a non-federal website.
Linking to a non-federal website does not constitute an endorsement by CDC or any of its employees of the sponsors or the information and products presented on the website.
You will be subject to the destination website's privacy policy when you follow the link.
CDC is not responsible for Section 508 compliance (accessibility) on other federal or private website.
For more information on CDC's web notification policies, see Website Disclaimers.
CDC.gov Privacy Settings
We take your privacy seriously. You can review and change the way we collect information below.
These cookies allow us to count visits and traffic sources so we can measure and improve the performance of our site. They help us to know which pages are the most and least popular and see how visitors move around the site. All information these cookies collect is aggregated and therefore anonymous. If you do not allow these cookies we will not know when you have visited our site, and will not be able to monitor its performance.
Cookies used to make website functionality more relevant to you. These cookies perform functions like remembering presentation options or choices and, in some cases, delivery of web content that based on self-identified area of interests.
Cookies used to track the effectiveness of CDC public health campaigns through clickthrough data.
Cookies used to enable you to share pages and content that you find interesting on CDC.gov through third party social networking and other websites. These cookies may also be used for advertising purposes by these third parties.
Thank you for taking the time to confirm your preferences. If you need to go back and make any changes, you can always do so by going to our Privacy Policy page.