Fathering a child while on Gleevec

[Guest guest]

There isn't much information on the internet about fathering children

while on Gleevec however I personally know of several men who did so

and all had normal babies.

I found one article that reported 8 male patients who conceived while

taking Gleevec ( I sure hope they meant to say that these patients

fathered children while on Gleevec because if they actually conceived

themselves, well that's quite impressive in deed). Anyway, of these 8

patients, there were 8 healthy babies born although one had what they

called a " mild rotation of the small intestine " but it was surgically

treated with no complications and no further problems. All 8 babies

were reported to be growing and developing normally. You can read the

article here if you want, just scroll mid way down the page.

http://jco.ascopubs.org/cgi/content/full/24/7/1204

I personally don't believe that germ cells are exposed to the same

toxic effects of Gleevec that somatic cells are (and I haven't seen any

evidence at all to suggest that they are) so I can't see why it would

be a problem for a man to father a child while on Gleevec. So far the

limited evidence that I have seen, indicates that men can safely father

children while on Gleevec.

Tracey