2025 Annual Report

RESEARCH RESEARCH

GENETIC MUTATIONS LINKED TO HIGHER RISK OF SECOND CANCERS IN CHILDHOOD CANCER SURVIVORS

A national study led by the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB) is helping explain why some childhood cancer survivors develop new cancers years after their original treatment. The research, published in the Journal of Clinical Oncology , found that inherited genetic changes can greatly increase the chance of developing a second cancer later in life. Childhood cancer survivors already face a higher risk of new cancers because of the radiation and chemotherapy used to treat their first disease. This study shows that risk is even higher for survivors who carry certain genetic mutations that affect how the body protects itself from cancer. The research team studied more than 1,100 childhood cancer survivors from across the country. They compared two groups: 499 survivors who developed a second cancer and 625 survivors who did not. By analyzing DNA samples, researchers looked for harmful mutations in genes that normally help prevent cancer. Researchers found that survivors with one of these mutations were more than four times as likely to develop a second cancer as those without a mutation. Some treatments

Survivors with a TP53 mutation, a gene that plays a major role in protecting the body from cancer, had an especially high risk.

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CHILDREN’S OF ALABAMA | UAB MEDICINE