Risk of Developing a Subsequent Primary Cancer among Adult Cancer Survivors

Improvements in cancer control have led to a drastic increase in cancer survivors who may be at an elevated risk of developing subsequent primary cancers (SPC). In this study, we assessed the risk and patterns of SPC development among 196,858 adult cancer survivors in Alberta, Canada.

We used data from the Alberta Cancer Registry to identify all first primary cancers occurring between 2004 and 2020. A SPC was considered as the next primary cancer occurring in a different site. We estimated standardized incidence ratios (SIR) for SPC development as the observed number of SPC (O) divided by the expected number of SPC (E), in which E is a weighted sum of the population-based year-age-sex-specific incidence rates and the corresponding person-years of follow-up.

The risk of developing a SPC up to 15 years after an initial cancer was 16.2% for males and 12.2% for females. Overall, both males (SIR = 1.50) and females (SIR = 1.58) had an increased risk of a SPC. There were significant increases in SPC risk for nearly all age groups, with a greater than five-fold increase for survivors diagnosed between ages 18 and 39. Screen-detectable cancers including colorectal, lung, cervix, and breast accounted for 46% and 27% of SPC among females and males, respectively.

Cancer survivors of nearly every initial site had substantially increased risk of a SPC, compared with the cancer risk in the general population.

Screen-detectable cancers were common SPC sites and highlight the need to investigate optimal strategies for screening the growing population of cancer survivors.