New Type Of Radiation Therapy Gives Hope For The Prevention Of Developing Second Cancer In Children

Radiation therapy was long used as the standard procedure for curing different cancers. Unfortunately, scientists discovered that the chances of developing second cancers rise as the radiation dose increases.

The function of radiation therapy is to remove cancerous tissue but the high-energy X-rays are difficult to limit. As a result, it sometimes affects badly other normal tissues, which can cause the formation of second cancer.

However, the number of pediatric cancer patients undergone radiation therapy decrease from 77 to 33 percent and that was between the 1970s and 1990. This is because the average radiation dose used decreased. Furthermore, their risk of developing second cancers within 15 years from the first treatment fell down.

According to Medical Xpress, the study involved 23,603 five-year cancer survivors from the Childhood Cancer Survivor Study. These survivors took treatment at 27 medical centers in the U.S. and Canada. The study was federally funded and was based at St. Jude. Gregory Armstrong, MD, of the St. Jude Department of Epidemiology, Cancer Control led the study.

"The most ominous late effect of pediatric cancer treatment is a second malignancy. This study shows efforts to reduce the late effects of treatment are paying off,” Dr. Armstrong said.

“The risk of second cancers for survivors increases with age. Therefore it's good to see the reduction emerging early in survivorship while survivors are still young," he added. The research was published online in Feb. 28 edition of the Journal of the American Medical Association.

According to the American Cancer Society, over 80 percent of children with cancer now live five years or longer. Generally, it's a massive increase since the mid-1970s when the five-year survival rate was only close to 58 percent, Daily Mail reported. In fact, this is the newest study proposing that modified cancer treatments, such as radiation and chemotherapy, could provide a long lasting effect.

The latest type of radiation called proton beam therapy was progressively used, especially for the treatment of skull and spine cancer. This is a very effective form of radiotherapy; it utilizes a high-powered beam of protons in replace of the high-energy X-rays. It transported proper doses to the cancerous areas thus it doesn't hit healthy tissues. Read also gene therapy for blood cancer here.