Clinicopathological characteristics of patients with multiple primary neoplasms-a retrospective analysis

Multiple primary neoplasms (MPN) represent the occurrence of two or more primary neoplasms in the same individual during lifetime and today there is an increased interest in studying the implications of MPN in the outcome of oncological patients. In this study we aimed to evaluate the clinicopathological characteristics of patients with MPN.

In this nonrandomized, retrospective study patients with MPN treated in the Oncology Institute "Prof.Dr.Ion Chiricuta" Cluj-Napoca between 2008-2012 were included. Data were collected from the medical charts.

278 patients with MPN were treated in our institute between 2008-2012: 120 patients with synchronous tumors and 158 with metachronous tumors. Of them, 260 patients presented with two MPN and 13 with three MPN. Fifty four percent (n=151) of the patients were females and 127 (46%) males, with a median age at diagnosis of 60 years. Most patients presented with early stage tumors, both for the initial primary tumor (54%) and for the second tumor (55%). The most frequent initial primary tumors were breast, head and neck, colorectal, ovarian, prostate and uterine body cancers and the most frequent second tumors were breast, colorectal, uterine body, head and neck, lung and thyroid cancers. Five-year survival was higher for patients with metachronous tumors (68%) compared with patients with synchronous tumors (54%; p=0.02).

MPN represent a real challenge in daily practice and their occurrence should not be overlooked. Lack of solid data from the literature makes it difficult to establish which patients are at risk for developing multiple neoplasms and should be closely followed up.