
Survivors of lymphoma are at risk for the development of a second primary malignancy (SPM), including development of new lymphomas, according to findings published at the 2022 American Society of Hematology Annual Meeting.
Yingyue Liu, of Shandong Provincial Hospital (SPH) at Shandong University in Jinan, Shandong, China, and colleagues recently attempted to estimate the incidence of and risk factors for lymphoma survivors diagnosed with SPMs.
The study included 2,912 hospitalized lymphoma cases from SPH from 2010 to 2021. Of these, 2.16% of patients had SPM during the study period.
The majority of SPMs occurred in male patients (69.84%). Additionally, more than 60% occurred in survivors who were aged 60 years or older and those who were previously treated with chemotherapy.
The median duration between SPMs and lymphoma was 3.14 years. Malignancies of the digestive system were the most common SPM, occurring in 42.86% of patients. Other common SPMs included respiratory system tumors (20.63%), urinary system tumors (12.70%), lung cancer (19.6%), stomach cancer (10.7%), and liver cancer (8.9%).
The researchers also compared the incidence and characteristics of SPMs in their patient group with those seen in the Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results (SEER) database. In SEER, 304,696 new lymphoma cases were diagnosed from 2010 to 2018, and SPMs occurred in 4.46% of survivors. Again, SPMs most commonly occurred in male patients and those who were older at diagnosis. The most common SPMs among SEER patients were non-Hodgkin lymphoma (17.7%), lung and bronchus cancer (12.1%), and prostate cancer (10.0%).
The researchers noted that the incidence rate of SPMs after specific lymphomas in the SEER database was higher than that in the SPH database, other than chronic lymphocytic leukemia. As an example, the incidence of SPM for patients with diffuse large B-cell lymphoma was 3.71% in SEER and 1.44% in SPH.
Based on these findings, the researchers recommended additional research to better understand the molecular “underpinning leading to increased SPM formation in lymphoma patients.”
Reference
Liu Y, Chu J, Ge X, et al. Incidence and mortality of second primary malignancies after lymphoma. Abstract #4305. Presented at the 64th American Society of Hematology Annual Meeting, December 10-13, 2022; New Orleans, Louisiana.