Ricerc@Sapienza

Treatment of cancer during pregnancy has been extensively studied, but few data are available about the management of women with cancer diagnosed during breastfeeding. Breastfeeding offers many advantages to mothers and their children, but anticancer drugs may pass into human milk and damage infants, whose detoxifying systems are still in development. Thus, knowledge about the excretion of anticancer drugs in breast milk is relevant, because in the absence of data most women stop breastfeeding while receiving (chemo)therapy.

Background: Pertussis infection can be severe in unvaccinated infants. A case-control study was conducted to investigate the potential role of breast-feeding in protecting young, unvaccinated infants from pertussis.

Breast milk, the first and irreplaceable source of nourishment for the infant, and the wellbeing of both the mother and baby are increasingly threatened by contamination from environmental toxic agents. In particular, elements can be used as good indicators/tracers of environmental and food contamination. In turn, as well as urine [1–3], and serum [4], breast milk can be considered as suitable biological matrix for biomonitoring studies.

Breast milk guarantees all the nutrients required by infants during their first few months of life and remains the most important food source for their health and growth. However, the mother may transfer potentially toxic chemicals to the suckling infant through breastfeeding. The aim of this study was to optimize and validate a fast method for the determination of a total content of 34 elements (Al, As, B, Ba, Be, Bi, Ca, Cd, Co, Cr, Cs, Cu, Fe, K, Li, Mg, Mn, Mo, Na, Ni, P, Pb, Rb, Sb, Se, Si, Sn, Sr, Te, Ti, Tl, U, V, and Zn) in liquid and lyophilized breast milk.