Leukemia linked to later cancer risk

People who have survived childhood leukemia appear much more prone to develop other types of cancer in the decades after their original cancer treatment.

Researchers tracked 2,169 people treated as children and adolescents between 1962 and 1998 at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital in Memphis, Tenn., for acute lymphoblastic leukemia. It is a form of cancer in which the bone marrow makes too many of a kind of white blood cell. Their cancer had gone into complete remission, and their health was monitored for an average of 19 years.

The researchers, writing in the March 21 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Assn., found that the childhood leukemia survivors were 13.5 times more likely than the general population to develop the most serious types of cancer.

In addition, the incidence of new cancers increased steadily for these cancer survivors during the 30 years after their leukemia treatment, the study found.

Chemotherapy and radiation treatments used on childhood leukemia patients may have been harsher than current treatments, and this in part accounts for the increased risk, the researchers said. But they said genetic factors also may be in play.