The Korea Herald

지나쌤

Study: Childhood cancer survivors face new risks

By Korea Herald

Published : June 6, 2012 - 08:52

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(Yonhap Photo) (Yonhap Photo)


Women treated with chest radiation for cancer when they were girls have a higher risk of developing breast cancer than previously thought, doctors warn.

Even lower doses of radiation therapy posed a risk for survivors of childhood cancer _ something not known before, researchers found. That means more women might need to be screened beginning at age 25 for breast cancer.

“We find that by age 50, approximately 30 percent of women treated with radiation for Hodgkin lymphoma‘’ as girls have developed breast cancer, said Chaya Moskowitz, a biostatistician at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York who led the study.

That is far higher than the 4 percent rate for the general population and is comparable to the rate in women who have mutations in inherited BRCA genes that increase risk. Among women who had chest radiation for any type of childhood cancer, 24 percent developed breast cancer by age 50.

The study was to be presented Monday at an American Society of Clinical Oncology conference in Chicago.

Radiation treatment has saved countless children from lymphoma, leukemia, soft-tissue tumors and other cancer types, but it can damage the DNA of healthy cells and lead to cancer decades later.

Children treated today get much lower doses, and to much smaller areas of the body, than kids did in 1970 to 1986, when the women in this study were girls.

A federally funded study has been tracking more than 1,200 of them, and researchers used a second study of relatives of women with breast cancer to compare the odds of developing breast cancer among various groups such as those with BRCA gene mutations.

Guidelines currently urge annual screening with mammograms and MRI scans starting at age 25 for women who had radiation therapy totaling 20 Grays _ a measure of how much radiation is absorbed. (AP)



<관련 한글 기사>

유방암 예방하려면 이것만은 피할 것!

어렸을 때 각종 암으로 가슴에 방사선 치료를 받았던 여성은 나이가 들어 유방암에 걸릴 위험이 애초 알려졌던 것보다 큰 것으로 확인됐다.

어렸을 때 적은 양의 방사선 치료를 받았다 할지라도 유방암 발병 위험이 있다는 사실이 새롭게 확인된 만큼 25세부터 유방암 검사를 받아야 한다는 것이 의사들의 지적이다.

이번 연구를 주도한 슬론-케터링 기념 암센터(뉴욕)의 차야 모스코비츠 의사는 “어렸을 때 호지킨 림프종(Hodgkin lymphoma)으로 방사선 치료를 받은 여성들 가운데 30%가량이 50세 이전에 유방암에 걸린다는 사실을 확인했다”고 밝혔다.

이 같은 수치는 전체여성의 유방암 발병률(4%)보다 훨씬 높으며 유방암 발병 요인이 되는 BRCA인자를 제거하기 위해 유방 절제술을 한 경우에도 비교해 볼 만 하다는 지적이다.

이번 연구는 4일 시카고에서 열리는 미 종양학회 총회에서 발표된다.

방사선 치료는 각종 암을 앓고 있는 어린이들의 생명을 구했지만 건강한 세포의 DNA를 파괴해서 수십 년이 지난 후에는 암을 유발한다는 것이 이번 연구에서 확인된것이다.

의학계는 이런 위험을 우려해서 과거에 비교해서 방사선량과 치료 부위를 가능한 줄이기 위해 노력해 왔다. (연합뉴스)