Irit Ben Aharon, MD/PhD, Clinical Professor

Director of the Joseph Fishman Oncology Division at Rambam Health Care Campus. Prof. Member of Oncology, her area of expertise – malignancies of the digestive system.

Her research focuses on the side effects of chemotherapy and biological treatments for blood vessels and fertility, training pathways in gastrointestinal membranes, and in the biology of digestive system cancers in young people. She has published dozens of articles on the subject and has received many competitive research grants.

More pregnant women are being diagnosed with cancer now than a few years ago. This phenomenon is expected to rise, due to delayed childbearing age and increased cancer incidence among young adults. Pregnancy-related cancer is a complex situation where doctors must balance the risks and benefits of treatment for the mother and the baby. There’s not a lot of information available, so there are no clear recommendations for reducing risks or caring for the baby in the long term.

Prof. Ben-Aharon has spent the last ten years researching how chemotherapy can cause health problems for cancer survivors. She has specifically looked at how chemotherapy can harm the reproductive system and blood vessels, leading to future health issues. Recently, she has been studying how chemotherapy can damage the placenta during pregnancy. Her hypothesis is that chemotherapy complications may derive from acute vascular injury leading to placental toxicity, on top of a possible direct effect on the embryo.

Prof. Ben-Aharon’s research projects aim to characterize the short and long-term effects on the heart and reproductive organs induced by in-utero exposure to chemotherapy. The results of these studies may lead to superior care for the exposed offspring, as well as for pediatric cancer survivors.