The 11-year-old actress who starred as Nala in the Broadway hit "The Lion King" has undergone a potentially lifesaving procedure.

Shannon Tavarez, who has leukemia, received an umbilical-cord blood transplant August 17th at Long Island Jewish Hospital.

The procedure was performed as an alternative to a bone-marrow transplant. Her doctor said a perfect bone-marrow match for her could not be found.

A family friend said Shannon will remain in the hospital under observation for doctors to ensure that her body does not reject the transplant.

She was forced to quit the show in April. Cast members held a marrow-donor registration drive for her last month.

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PregnancyWeekly.com

Pregnant women subjected to passive smoking give birth to babies with an increased, lifelong susceptibility to cancer, research reveals.

Passive smoking causes the same type of genetic damage in unborn infants as that found in adult smokers with cancerous tumors.

Researchers said the abnormalities in newborns were indistinguishable from those found in babies of mothers who were active smokers.

And they may affect survival, birth weight and lifelong susceptibility to diseases like cancer, according to the study published online in the Open Paediatric Medicine Journal.

Dr Stephen Grant and colleagues at the University of Pittsburgh in the U.S. found a smoke-induced mutation in an oncogene, a gene which transforms normal cells into cancerous tumors.

The mutation was the same level and type in newborns of mothers who were active smokers as those in babies born to non-smoking mothers exposed to tobacco smoke.

The mutations were also discernible in newborns of women who had stopped smoking during their pregnancies, but who did not actively avoid second-hand smoke.

The study confirms previous research in which Dr Grant discovered evidence of genetic abnormalities in babies whose mothers were exposed to environmental tobacco smoke.

There is also evidence that maternal exposure to passive smoke, as well as a history of paternal cigarette smoke exposure, is linked with an increased risk of childhood cancer, especially leukaemias and lymphomas in children under five.

Dr Grant said: 'These findings back up our previous conclusion that passive, or secondary, smoke causes permanent genetic damage in newborns that is very similar to the damage caused by active smoking.

'By using a different laboratory test, we were able to pick up a completely distinct yet equally important type of genetic mutation that is likely to persist throughout a child's lifetime.

'Pregnant women should not only stop smoking, but be aware of their exposure to tobacco smoke from other family members, work and social situations.'

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PregnancyWeekly.com

Living close to a mobile phone mast does not increase the chance of a pregnant woman's baby developing cancer before he or she reaches the age of five, a study has found.

Researchers from Imperial College London looked at almost 7,000 children and found those who developed cancer aged four or younger were no more likely to have a birth address close to a mast than their peers.

The study included 1,397 British children aged up to four who were registered with leukemia or a tumor in the brain or central nervous system between 1999 and 2001.

The proximity of their birth address to a mast was compared to that of four healthy children of the same gender who were born on the same day, chosen randomly to act as controls.

Professor Paul Elliott, director of the MRC-HPA Centre for Environment and Health at Imperial College London and the study's lead author, said: "People are worried that living near a mobile phone mast might affect their children's health.

"We looked at this question with respect to risk of cancers in young children. We found no pattern to suggest that the children of mums living near a base station during pregnancy had a greater risk of developing cancer than those who lived elsewhere."

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PregnancyWeekly.com

An eagle-eyed grandmother saved her grandson's life after she noticed an unusual shadow on the toddler's eye in a holiday photo.

Three-year-old Ewan Boarder, had developed a rare eye cancer but was showing no symptoms of the killer illness.

However, his grandmother Beverley Warner, 61, noticed a white shadow on his eye when she was leafing through photos taken on a recent holiday to the Isle of Wight.

She remembered reading about a child with cancer who had the same shadow in a photograph and warned Ewan's parents.

Ewan was referred to the local hospital which in turn sent him on to a London hospital which diagnosed that he was suffering from retinoblastoma - a deadly tumour of the retina. Although he went on to lose an eye he survived the disease.

His mother Samantha Boarder, 32, said: 'We are so lucky that my mum spotted this in the picture and knew a bit about it. We knew something was wrong but did not know it was retinoblastoma. Not only do parents know little about this, doctors also seem to not be aware of it.'

The mother-of-two added: 'We had been to see a GP a couple of times and they didn't know what was wrong. It was the photo that made a real difference and I have a lot to thank my mum for.'

Samantha, of Norwich, now desperately wants to raise awareness of the condition and warn other parents what to look out for.

'We had noticed his right eye looked a slightly different color from the other one, but he did not seem unwell and we went to a GP, who did not seem overly concerned. The GP referred us to the Norfolk and Norwich University Hospital. They then sent him straight to see an eye specialist at the Royal London Hospital, who diagnosed a tumor.'

By this time Ewan had become completely blind in his right eye and had started complaining it was sore. But as he had just turned two it was difficult for him to tell his worried parents just how bad it was.

Specialists in London said the tumor was aggressive and had to remove his eye just under a year ago.

Scans revealed although the cancer had not spread to other parts of his body, it had reached the outer blood vessels of his eye and Ewan had to have chemotherapy.

The brave tot now has a prosthetic eye and his family - which includes dad Jason and four-year-old sister Elise - said he had coped amazingly days after he celebrated his third birthday with his friends.

'He has been absolutely brilliant. It is amazing how well he has coped,' said Samantha.

'Ewan gets his eye checked every 12 weeks and luckily it is not the hereditary form of the condition so he will not pass it onto his children and no one else in the family has it. I wanted to bring this to the attention of other parents because I didn't know anything about this condition before. If you catch is early, it is treatable.'

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PregnancyWeekly.com

A young woman and her unborn baby have miraculously survived pioneering surgery to remove a tumor the size of a watermelon growing inside the expectant mother's chest.

Nicola Ellington, 26, was unaware her body was feeding not just her baby but also a deadly teratoma tumor.

The teratoma - Greek for monster - is so-called because it is often made up from cancerous cells that form teeth and hair.

Miss Ellington and her unborn daughter Layla Sky - now aged 13-weeks - faced certain death as the tumor continued to grow crushing her heart and lungs.

Surgeons decided the tumor - which had lain dormant in Miss Ellington's body for decades since birth - had to be removed or both mother and baby would die.

Although teratoma tumors have been removed from patients before, the operation had never been performed on a pregnant woman.

Miss Ellington said she had been in agonizing pain for months, as the tumor put more and more pressure on her chest.

Doctors had initially failed to spot the tumor, and simply told the expectant mother to take morphine.

A desperate Miss Ellington turned to heart specialists at University Hospital Coventry, West Midlands, where MRI scans revealed the tumor had already grown to be as big as her left lung.

She said: 'The pain was indescribable and it started not long after I became pregnant, it felt like my chest was being crushed.

'I couldn't believe it when they told me what kind of tumor it was and that it had teeth and hair, it was like a monster growing inside me.

'The pain was so bad I could barely breath and it felt like someone was pushing down on my chest.'

Doctors told Miss Ellington that she may have lived with the tumor her whole life but it was only until she became pregnant that the hormones caused it to grow rapidly.

'It was a shock to be told that I have tumor in my chest without even really realizing it,' the first-time mother said.

'Some of my family had told me I should have an abortion because of the risks to me to have any surgery, but I knew I had to go through with it for Layla.

'I remember after the operation I was shown the scans showing Layla was alright and the 'monster' had gone, I was so relieved.'

Doctors had to wait before they could operate on Miss Ellington because Layla's development was still at a crucial stage where she was forming her brain and limbs.

But as the tumor increased in size the oxygen reaching the womb was being cut off and the decision was made to go into theatre.

It took two hours for surgeon Joseph Marzouk to remove the mass. Miss Ellington remained in hospital after the surgery until Layla Sky was born last December weighing a healthy 7lbs 6ozs.

Dr Dawn Adamson, consultant cardiologist at University Hospital Coventry who first spotted the tumor, said she believed it had been triggered by the pregnancy.

'None of us had ever seen anything like this before in pregnancy. Consulting colleagues around the world, we have discovered this is the first time any operation like this has been carried out for these reasons. These tumors are made up embryonic of the cells in the womb which instead of being used to make up the developing baby, lay dormant and then develop later into a tumor.'

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PregnancyWeekly.com

Spotlight on: Greg Stephens, founder of the National CML Society

Active in the CML community: since January 2005

Women who drink alcohol while pregnant raise the risk that their child will develop a rare type of blood cancer called acute myeloid leukemia, or AML, a new study suggests.

In a pooled analysis of data from published studies, researchers found that drinking alcohol during pregnancy was associated with a 56 percent increased risk of AML in children.

But in an email to Reuters Health, Dr. Julie Ross of the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis, who was not involved in the study, said it's important for women to know that childhood AML is rare (about 700 cases are diagnosed each year) and likely has many causes.

Moreover, she said: "The vast majority of women who consume alcohol during pregnancy will not have a child who develops leukemia. However, given other risks associated with alcohol drinking during pregnancy, these results can help to reiterate the message that it is probably best to abstain from alcohol if you are pregnant or planning to get pregnant."

What causes leukemia in children is largely unknown, but researchers suspect it may be an interaction between genes and the environment, including drinking alcohol, Dr. Paule Latino-Martel of the Research Center for Human Nutrition in France and colleagues note in a report published online today.

When the researchers looked at 21 previous studies of women's drinking habits during pregnancy and childhood leukemia, they found that women who drank during pregnancy had a 56 percent increased risk of childhood AML, they report in the journal Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers & Prevention.

Ross cautioned, however: "While a 56 percent increased risk sounds like a lot, in real terms it means that with a childhood AML incidence rate in the US of about 8 cases diagnosed per million children, the risk might increase to about 12 cases diagnosed per million children. Thus about 4 more cases per million children."

Despite the recommendation that women abstain from alcohol while pregnant, it's estimated that 60 percent of Russian women drink while pregnant, as do 59 percent of their Australian counterparts. Fifty-two percent of French women, 30 percent of Swedish women and 12 percent of American women drink while pregnant, according to estimates.

For American women, Ross further explained: "If we are to believe that the risk (of childhood AML) is increased by about 56 percent, and that about 12 percent of US women drink alcohol sometime during pregnancy, this means that perhaps up to about 6 percent of childhood AML in the US might be attributable to alcohol consumption."

On the flip side, "this also means that 94 percent might be attributable to other causes," Ross noted.

Only a few of the studies reviewed by Latino-Martel's group reported results according to type of alcohol consumed -- beer, wine, or spirits -- and the existing evidence does not suggest that one type of alcohol could be more related to leukemia risk than another, they say.

The limited available data also make it impossible to tell whether it matters when women drink in the course of a pregnancy, although risk tended to be higher when alcohol was consumed later in pregnancy.

The researchers say it's possible the results were skewed because some women who drank during pregnancy did not admit to it "due to the stigma." There were other limitations: Only a few of the studies adjusted for smoking during pregnancy and factors such as exposure to pesticides, folate intake, birth weight and age of the women were largely not taken into account.

Despite these limitations and caveats, the current findings serve to strengthen the public health recommendation against drinking alcohol during pregnancy, the study team, and Ross, conclude.

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PregnancyWeekly.com

In new evidence set to spark debate over whether breastfeeding is best, scientists have found breast milk provides a natural immunity boost for youngsters.

The same compound, Human Alpha-lactalbumin Made Lethal to Tumour cells or HAMLET, could be a common cancer treatment for adults within five years.

Human trials have shown HAMLET can kill bladder cancer and laboratory tests have found it kills 40 different types of cancer.

But crucially, the chemical does not kill healthy cells which means it does not cause the nasty side effects of current chemotherapy treatments.

Assistant Professor Roger Karlsson, of the University of Gothenburg, said the discovery added to the debate over whether breast feeding or bottle feeding was best for babies.

"HAMLET is produced by combining alpha-lactalbumin in the milk and oleic acid which is found in babies' stomachs," he said.

"So breast feeding has been linked to actually reducing the risk of cancer in babies."

Prof Karlsson said tests had shown that HAMLET attacks the "power plant" of cancer cells.

"HAMLET also triggers some of the cell´s apoptotic pathways – apoptosis is programmed cell death," he said.

Human trials on male bladder cancers sufferers showed tumors were reduced without painful side effects within just five days of treatment.

Prof Karlsson said: "A pilot study of bladder cancer patients were injected with a HAMLET solution through a catheter.

"The solution killed cancer cells and the size of the tumors actually reduced within five days."

But Prof Karlsson said the treatment was limited because it had to be injected in the exact site of the cancer cells.

"It could also work if doctors were able to inject the solution into the vein which carries blood directly to the site of the cancer," he said.

A simple pill or liquid solution would just be "metabolized" by the body as normal food, he added.

Prof Karlsson said the treatment would be ideal as a complement to current chemotherapies.

He said scientists discovered the HAMLET by accident when they were investigating the health benefits of breast milk.

"They were actually looking for antibiotic powers in breast milk when they came across HAMLET and found in one of their tests that it killed cancer cells," he said.

The researchers are hoping to being human clinical trials as soon as possible.

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PregnancyWeekly.com

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