Cancer Fighters Thrive is a quarterly print and online magazine bringing readers practical, innovative and inspirational information about cancer treatment and survivorship.
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32 C A NCER FIGH T ER S T HR I V E | sUMMER 20 15 C A NCERFIGHTER S THRI V E .COM Fortunately, due to advances in treatments, secondary cancers are relatively rare today. As a patient or survivor, however, it is still important to be aware of the risk and the value of follow-up and screenings. "Early detection is important to improve outcomes," explains Dr. Crilley. THE LINK BETWEEN TREATMENT AND SECONDARY CANCERS Two big culprits in secondary cancers are radiation and chemotherapy, and they carry different risks. "Radiation is more likely to result in solid tumors that occur 10 to 20 years or more after treatment," says Dr. Patel. He explains that chemotherapy is more likely to cause nonsolid tumors (such as cancers of the blood), which tend to occur in the frst 10 years after treatment. According to Dr. Crilley, solid tumors occur more frequently as secondary cancers than do blood cancers. "An example of a solid tumor arising from treatment would be breast cancer in a patient who had been treated years earlier for a Hodgkin's lymphoma with radiation therapy to the chest," she explains. Lung cancer, she says, is another example and can occur 10 or 15 years or even longer after initial exposure to treatment. "The biggest concern with secondary cancers is for pediatric patients," says Dr. Patel. Children exposed to radiation or chemotherapy may have full life expectancies, giving them more opportunity to develop another cancer. SECONDARY CANCERS: WHAT DO THE STATISTICS SAY? It is difcult to fnd clear estimates of how frequently secondary cancers occur or the likelihood that a survivor will develop one. The American Cancer Society reports statistics for particular types of cancers in its annual Cancer Facts & Figures, but it is harder to fnd reliable estimates for secondary cancer overall. 1 Some research, however, has given us an idea of how frequently secondary cancers develop. In 1995 the National Cancer Institute estimated that secondary cancers (or multiple cancers distinct from the original) made up about 13 percent of cancer diagnoses in men and almost 14 percent in women. In the same analysis, secondary cancers developed twice as frequently as frst-time diagnoses. This means that a cancer survivor has about twice the risk of developing a new cancer as someone who has never been diagnosed. 2 These are general estimates. Your individual risk for a secondary cancer and which type of cancer you are at risk for depends on many factors. These include your age at frst diagnosis, treatment, family history (or hereditary cancer risk), the type of initial diagnosis and the type of treatment you receive. Colorectal cancer survivors, for example, have a higher risk for secondary colorectal cancers as well as for breast, uterine and ovarian cancers. Breast cancer survivors have a higher risk for cancer in the other breast. The type of treatment (radiation and chemotherapy), how these treatments are used and exactly what they contain also infuence risk.