Hospitalization rate in offspring of cancer survivors: a national cohort study

The number of childbirths among cancer survivors continues to increase, but it is still largely unknown whether the children of cancer survivors might experience adverse health outcomes during the process of growing up.

We identified all individuals diagnosed with cancer between 1958 and 2015 from the Swedish Cancer Registry and linked them to the Swedish Medical Birth Register to identify their offspring born between 1997 and 2015. Up to 10 children, whose parents did not have a diagnosis of cancer, were matched with the study population according to date of birth and gender.

By linking with the Swedish Hospital Discharge Register, we found that the hospitalization rate was 15% higher in offspring of female cancer survivors, and 16% higher in offspring of male cancer survivors as compared to matched controls. Besides an increased risk of hospitalization due to malignant neoplasms (relative risk (RR) = 1.86, 99% CI 1.70-2.04) and benign neoplasms (RR = 1.48, 99% CI 1.18-1.86), a non-significant increased risk was found for hospitalization due to infectious and parasitic disease (RR = 1.09, 99% CI 0.98-1.21), diseases of the blood and blood-forming organs and certain disorders involving the immune mechanisms (RR = 1.33, 99% CI 0.98-1.80), and diseases of the circulatory system (RR = 1.05, 99% CI 0.98-1.12).

Our study suggests that children of cancer survivors might experience a significantly increased rate of hospitalization, which calls for further studies.

Cancer survivors might be aware that the risk of hospitalization due to various diseases might be higher in their children as compared to the normal population.