Does chemotherapy for gallbladder cancer affect the fetus?

If a pregnant woman is diagnosed with gallbladder cancer, her doctors, her mother, and her family face a difficult choice: Which is more important, the mother's health or the fetus's health? It is well known that the risk of birth defects increases when chemotherapy is used in the first 12 weeks of pregnancy, when the fetus' organs are forming. If chemotherapy is delayed, it can cause the cancer to spread.

In the past 10 years, although doctors often choose to use chemotherapy drugs after the third month of pregnancy, people are still concerned about whether the fetus's brain and heart will be damaged.

Except for the first three months of pregnancy (this period is when the embryonic organs are formed and are easily affected), chemotherapy drugs may cause harm to the fetus. The effects of chemotherapy drugs on the fetus when used at other times need further evidence.

This is because, on the one hand, the placenta itself has a placental barrier that can shield chemotherapy drugs from entering the placenta and harming the fetus; on the other hand, the placenta also has the function of automatically clearing out harmful substances and can eliminate drugs that accidentally enter.

Most of the patients we see in clinic choose to delay chemotherapy, that is, to have chemotherapy after delivery. They are mainly worried that chemotherapy drugs may have adverse effects on the fetus. This choice is not conducive to the early treatment of gallbladder cancer.