Risk of Second Primary Lung Cancer After Treatment of Primary Lung Tumor
Posted: Monday, March 19, 2018
For patients who have been treated for an initial primary lung cancer, there appears to be a continued risk for development of a second primary lung cancer, according to a retrospective analysis of Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results (SEER) data published in the Journal of Thoracic Oncology. The cumulative risk was progressive over time and did not plateau, revealed Manish K. Thakur, MD, of Karmanos Cancer Center/Wayne State University School of Medicine, Detroit, and colleagues. These findings suggest that clinical follow-up, possibly including imaging, for this patient population may be warranted indefinitely.
“A new primary lung malignancy is uniformly more likely in patients with a history of lung cancer than in the general population,” declared the investigators. “Overall, second primary lung cancer developed in 3% of patients with a prior lung cancer.”
The review focused on patients in the SEER 13 database from 1992 to 2007. An initial primary lung cancer was diagnosed in more than 150,000 patients, with most (88%) being non–small cell lung cancer.
The standardized incidence ratios (SIRs) for secondary primary lung cancers were high for both men and women at any age but were highest if the initial primary tumor had occurred at a younger age. The rate of development of a second primary lung cancer was found to be 1.10% per patient per year, with a median time interval between the initial and second primary tumors of about 60 months. The SIR values for all cohorts were greater than 2.2.
