New Delhi, April 6: Can cancer therapies increase the risk of developing cancer? A report published on Monday reveals a disturbing truth. A population-based study from Japan has shown a rise in therapy-related acute myeloid leukemia (TAML) rates in recent years, particularly following breast cancer treatment.
Findings published in the American Cancer Society’s peer-reviewed journal, Wiley Online, indicate that certain therapies used for cancer treatment may elevate the risk of developing secondary cancers that directly affect the blood. This means that the risk of secondary primary cancers is increasing compared to the general population.
TAML is a severe cancer of the blood and bone marrow that can occur after chemotherapy or radiation for a previous primary cancer; one reason may be the DNA damage caused by these treatments. Kenji Kishimoto, the lead author from the Osaka International Cancer Institute, stated, “This study is a crucial step toward better understanding how the nature of TAML is changing with the increasing number of cancer survivors.”
Are cases of TAML also on the rise among cancer survivors after treatment? To explore this question, researchers analyzed data from the Osaka Cancer Registry. This data pertains to patients diagnosed with acute myeloid leukemia (AML) between 1990 and 2020.
Out of approximately 9,841 AML patients, 636 (6.5 percent) were diagnosed with TAML. The annual rate of TAML increased from 0.13 per 100,000 population in 1990 to 0.36 per 100,000 population in 2020. The proportion of TAML cases among total AML cases nearly doubled.
The primary cancer treated before the onset of TAML was another form of blood cancer (23.1 percent); following that were breast cancer (14.6 percent), colorectal cancer (11.5 percent), and gastric cancer (8.7 percent).
According to the study, changes over time in primary cancer cases were evident, with a notable increase in breast cancer cases, while gastric cancer cases showed a clear decline.
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