ASPS and pregnancy

[Olga]

We have a case when the now deceased ASPS patient became pregnant while also being under the anti-angiogenic treatment (Sunitinib).
There was a significant disease progression in the first moth of pregnancy, but the progression stopped after the pregnancy terminated itself at 6 weeks mark. The patient remained on the same drug Suntinib trough all this event with no interruptions.
We already had a case when there was a significant speed up in ASPS in a pregnant patient with the unusually aggressive course of the disease. There is no information on this board about that case as it was before this web-site was created and I post it for the information only based on my best recollection. That patient gave birth to a girl but unfortunately lost her life soon after that.
It is a long discussed subject if ASPS is a sex hormone dependent/sensitive disease. I do not know what specific hormones are getting sharply elevated in the first months of pregnancy but we hope that this additional information will aid to the researchers pursuing their task and to the patients in their life planning.

[Amanda]

Hello,
My pains that turned out to be asps started when I became pregnant 17 years ago and I am going to ask my dr to stop my monthly because it's weird it started to get bad and now I had this brain and bone met....

Though it is heartbreaking I do believe that it awakened my asps...

[Bonni Hess]

Thank you for this important shared information Olga and for your additional personal insights regarding this issue Amanda. Based on our 13+ years of anecdotal experience observations and research, we have always been concerned that pregnancy or hormone supplements such as oral contraceptives can increase the progression and aggressiveness of ASPS and have therefore felt that unfortunately neither was an option for Brittany until there is definitive proof that she is ASPS free and completely cured of this insidious disease. The case that you refer to Olga regarding the young woman who experienced aggressive disease progression when she became pregnant and ultimately tragically lost her Life soon after her baby was born involved a young woman who had been diagnosed with ASPS at age 14 and received some kind of systemic treatment which seemed to stabilize the progression of her disease for about ten years until she married and became pregnant with her second child. I communicated with her heartbroken sister at that time and she firmly believed that the second pregnancy devastatingly caused her sister's disease reoccurrence, although perplexingly her first pregnancy did not seem to cause her ASPS to become active. Additionally, another ASPS patient (Amanda M.) who I closely followed and communicated with her and her mother, thankfully obtained sustained long term stabilization of her disease after systemic treatment with a harsh regimen of traditional chemo and following her successful treatment and apparent sustained remission of her disease, has had two children from two successful pregnancies with no disease reoccurrence. There certainly seems to be mixed data available on this issue and Brittany's doctors can not confirm for us that there is a hormonal link to ASPS progression, but we feel that it is best to be safe rather than sorry until more definitive information and documented evidence is available.
With deepest gratitude for your thoughtful sharing, caring thoughts, and continued Hope,
Bonni

[D.ap]

We all know that ultimately boys are made up of different hormones than girls
My thought on the issue of pregnancy and ASPS is that the mother experiences apparent different hormones while carrying a boy or girl.
Can this be the reason for the mother's apparent acceleration of their ASPS?
Again we are talking the hypothesis of hormones playing a part in ASPS's progress


http://www.scientificamerican.com/artic ... ween-boys/

[Olga]

Debbie, we should not assume that it is certain sex hormones that trigger ASPS growth, there are different hormones that present in both genders - growth hormones, steroid hormones, thyroid hormones etc. that can be connected downstream with the sex hormones and be triggered by the pregnancy and other events alike. Hard to say.