Follow up after molar pregnancy
This page tells you about follow up after having treatment for molar pregnancy. There is information below about
Follow up after molar pregnancy
If you have had a molar pregnancy, your doctor will follow your progress closely, to check you are clear of disease and for any signs of it coming back. You will be referred to one of 3 specialist centres in the UK for follow up.
What follow up involves
You will have urine or blood tests to check your hCG levels. The specialist centre will give you a kit for your urine tests and you send the samples to them. If you are having blood tests, your GP surgery may be able to do them.
If you’ve had a D and C you’ll need weekly tests to check your hCG levels. If your levels are normal the tests will become less frequent with time. Your follow up will go on for between 6 months and 2 years, depending on the type of molar pregnancy you had and your hCG levels.
Future pregnancy
It is important not to get pregnant until your doctors say it is safe to try. But if you do become pregnant before they recommend it, you must let your specialist team know. This is because your hCG levels will go up with a normal pregnancy, so they won’t be able to monitor your disease using your hCG levels. After you have had your baby, you will need to have further hCG tests done.
You can view and print the quick guides for all the pages in the Treating molar pregnancy section.
A molar pregnancy occurs when the fertilisation of the egg by the sperm goes wrong and leads to the growth of abnormal cells or clusters of water filled sacs inside the womb. This condition is one of a group of conditions known as gestational trophoblastic tumours (GTT for short). If you have had a molar pregnancy, your doctors will follow your progress closely, to check that all the molar tissue has gone and for any signs of it coming back.
All women diagnosed with a molar pregnancy are referred to one of 3 specialist hospitals in the UK for their follow up. These centres are at
- Charing Cross Hospital in London
- Weston Park Hospital in Sheffield
- Ninewells Hospital in Dundee
The length of your follow up will depend on how quickly your hCG levels fall and whether you need further treatment.
You will have urine or blood tests to check your hCG level (human chorionic gonadotrophic hormone). The specialist hospital will give you a kit for your urine tests and you send the samples to them. If you are having blood tests, your GP surgery may be able to do them for you.
If you’ve had a D and C you’ll need weekly tests to check your hCG levels. If your levels are normal the tests will become less frequent with time. Your follow up will go on for between 6 months and 2 years, depending on the type of molar pregnancy you had and your hCG levels.
Your treatment centre will send you all the kits that you need for these follow up tests when you need to do them. So you don’t need to worry about remembering the timings yourself.
If you need chemotherapy treatment because you have persistent trophoblastic disease, there is information about follow up after persistent trophoblastic disease and choriocarcinoma in this section of CancerHelp UK.
It’s important not to get pregnant again until your doctors say it is safe for you to try. But if you do become pregnant before they recommend it, you must let your specialist team know. This is because your hCG levels will go up with a normal pregnancy, so they won’t be able to monitor you for the molar prenancy by using your hCG levels. After you have had your baby, you will need to have further hCG tests done.
There is more information about contraception and future pregnancies in the living with molar pregnancy and choriocarcinoma section of CancerHelp UK.
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