Expectant mothers who have complications early on should be supervised more closely in current and future pregnancies, a study suggests.

 Problems in the first three months increase the risk of premature birth and other difficulties - in that pregnancy and subsequent ones.

 The data from 75 studies also showed a history of miscarriages was linked to future premature births.

 Experts said the research would help identify those at high risk.

 The analysis presented at the European Society of Human Reproduction and Embryology (ESHRE) annual meeting looked at several common complications of the first three months of pregnancy.

 Vaginal bleeding in the early weeks was associated with an increased risk of pre-eclampsia, premature delivery and more than double the risk of having a low birth weight or very low birth weight baby.

 An accumulation of blood in the womb - intrauterine haematoma - increased these risks further.

 Extreme early morning sickness was associated with a three times higher risk of premature delivery and a nearly three-fold risk of low birth weight.

 Women who had been pregnant with twins but miscarried one baby very early in pregnancy also had increased risks of later problems.

 A history of one or more miscarriages nearly doubled the risk in an ongoing pregnancy of preterm premature rupture of the membrane that surrounds the baby in the womb, and increased the risk of a premature birth.

 If a previous pregnancy had to be terminated for any reason, premature birth was a risk in subsequent pregnancies.

 Although the study did not address causes of risks in future pregnancies it could be related to underlying health problems or lifestyle factors, experts said.

 Monitoring

 Study leader Dr Robbert van Oppenraaij, from Erasmus MC University Medical Centre, in the Netherlands, said the extent of future complications was related to the severity or recurrence of the early problems.

 "Events and complications in early pregnancy are amongst the most common complications in women during their pregnancy and can be extremely distressing for them.

 "For the clinician it is important to interpret the symptoms and to understand not only the short-term consequences, but also the long-term consequences of these early pregnancy complications."

 Tony Rutherford, chair of the British Fertility Society, said the results suggested that some patients would benefit from closer monitoring.

 "It is a message that these patients need to have supervision.

 "The main concern is with early birth and if we can try and identify these patients we can improve the outcome."

 Patrick O'Brien, spokesman for the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists, said the underlying reasons for some of the associations would include lifestyle factors such as smoking, nutrition and also conditions such as hypertension and diabetes.

 "It notches up our level of awareness that if someone has problems in early pregnancy, especially repeated problems, maybe we should be watching these women a bit more closely."

 Researchers say a new type of cancer treatment has produced highly promising results in preliminary drug trials.

 Olaparib was given to 19 patients with inherited forms of advanced breast, ovarian and prostate cancers caused by mutations of the BRCA1 and BRCA2 genes.

 In 12 of the patients - none of whom had responded to other therapies - tumours shrank or stabilised.

 The study, led by the Institute of Cancer Research, features in the New England Journal of Medicine.

 One of the first patients to be given the treatment is still in remission after two years.

 Olaparib - a member of a new class of drug called PARP inhibitors - targets cancer cells, but leaves healthy cells relatively unscathed.

 The researchers, working with the pharmaceutical company AstraZeneca, found that patients experienced very few side-effects, and some reported the treatment was "much easier than chemotherapy".

 Researcher Dr Johann de Bono said the drug should now be tested in larger trials.

 He said: "This drug showed very impressive results in shrinking patients' tumours.

 "It's giving patients who have already tried many conventional treatments long periods of remission, free from the symptoms of cancer or major side-effects."

 Olaparib is the first successful example of a new type of personalised medicine using a technique called "synthetic lethality" - a subtle way of exploiting the body's own molecular weaknesses for positive effect.

 In this case the drug takes advantage of the fact that while normal cells have several different ways of repairing damage to their DNA, one of these pathways is disabled by the BRCA mutations in tumour cells.

 Olaparib blocks one of the repair pathways by shutting down a key enzyme called PARP.

 This does not affect normal cells because they can call on an alternative repair mechanism, controlled by their healthy BRCA genes.

 But in tumours cells, where the BRCA pathway is disabled by genetic mutation, there is no alternative repair mechanism, and the cells die.

 Cancer cells with the BRCA1 or BRCA2 mutations are the first to be shown to be sensitive to PARP inhibitors.

 But there is evidence that olaparib will also be effective in other cancers with different defects in the repair of DNA.

 Professor Stan Kaye, who also worked on the study, said: "The next step is to test this drug on other more common types of ovarian and breast cancers where we hope it will be just as effective."

 The researchers say the process of drug evaluation and registration may have to be revamped to take consideration of the fact that new generation cancer drugs target specific molecular defects, rather than types of cancer.

 Dr Peter Sneddon, of the charity Cancer Research UK, said: "It is very encouraging to see the development of 'personalised treatment', tailored to the requirements of the individual patient, becoming a reality as it offers the opportunity to design new drugs that are truly selective.

 "Although development of this drug is in its early stages, it is very exciting to see that it has the potential to work when other treatment options have failed."

 Nearly 30,000 children a year attend hospital to have teeth pulled or be treated for decay, research has shown.

 Researchers who analysed hospital data said it was "worrying" that the number of under-17s hospitalised for dental treatment had been rising since 1997.

 They found children from poor areas were twice as likely to need treatment as those from more affluent families.

 Experts said the findings, published in the British Dental Journal, highlighted a major public health issue.

 It has led to criticism of Labour's policy relating to NHS dentists and calls by some for compulsory water fluoridation.

 The data revealed there were 517,885 individual courses of dental treatment in NHS hospitals for children up to the age of 17 between 1997 and 2006.

 The total number of children needing treatment was 470,113 and 80% of admissions involved extraction - in two-thirds of cases because of tooth decay.

 The peak age for children needing teeth taken out was five.

 Prof David Moles, who led the study at Plymouth's Peninsula Dental School, said yearly rises in hospital admissions had come despite rates of tooth decay and infection remaining steady.

 The reasons for this would have to be identified "in order to cut the number of admissions, improve dental care for children and ultimately reduce the financial burden to the NHS", he said.

 Dr Paul Ashley, head of paediatric dentistry at University College London's Eastman Dental Institute, was the second author of the study.

 He said: "Two aspects of the study are particularly worrying - the rise in the number of general anaesthetics being given to children, and the widening gulf in dental health between social classes."

 He said general anaesthetics could be fatal to children.

 Tooth decay is preventable through regular brushing and check-ups and Peter Bateman, chairman of the British Dental Association's salaried dentists committee, said: "It is a tragedy that social class remains such an accurate predictor of oral health.

 "Water fluoridation, as the long-standing scheme in the West Midlands illustrates, has great potential to address this divide."

 'Lack of access'

 Liberal Democrat health spokesman, Norman Lamb, criticised the "appalling lack of access" to NHS dentists and called for a "radical overhaul" of the system.

 He told BBC Radio 5Live: "One of the possible causes [of poor child dental health] is that children are not going to the dentist enough.

 "We hear constantly about problems in accessing NHS dentists. It really demonstrates a failure of government policy that the situation is getting worse, not better."

 Mr Lamb acknowledge that the research was based on figures pre-dating the 2006 introduction of new contracts for NHS dentists, which aimed to widen access.

 But he said: "What we've seen since is the position getting even worse."

 A Department of Health spokesman said the study's findings had been influenced by changes in 2001 to ensure anaesthesia was given in hospitals - rather than dental surgeries - for safety reasons.

 "There has been no increase in tooth decay in the period covered, which pre-dates the new dental contract," the spokesman said.

 "Preventative oral healthcare has actually improved substantially thanks to the new dental contract.

 "Recent statistics from the World Health Organisation show that our 12-year olds have the healthiest teeth in Europe."

 The government advised the NHS to consider introducing water fluoridation in some areas, where it was supported by communities, to address disparities in oral health, he added.