A new study by a British team was published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, which points to the case of a child that acquired leukaemia from its mother.

Scientists have struggled to answer the question of if cancer is spreadable for the last 100 years, due to the fact that it was believed that any cancer cells that could make it past the placenta would be destroyed by the child’s immune system.

However, there are 17 cases in which it appears that a mother passed the cancer cells of either melanoma, or leukaemia, to their children.

The study focused primarily on a Japanese woman and her baby with leukaemia, and researchers utilized a genetic fingerprinting technology to prove that the cancer cells had in fact come from the mother.

The result showed that the cancer cells had the same mutated cancer gene that was not an inherited trait, proving in isolation from the womb the child would not have been exposed to leukaemia.

Mel Graves, the lead researcher of the Institute of Cancer Research said the centre was glad to finally find an answer to the scientific question, but stressed that the situation was rare and that for the most part woman with cancer do not have to worry about passing it on to a foetus.

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