After exclusion of ocular conditions and SMNs, excess risk persisted for bilateral disease only
MONDAY, March 7, 2016 (HealthDay News) — Retinoblastoma (Rb) survivors have increased risk of chronic conditions, according to a study published in the March 1 issue of Cancer.
Danielle Novetsky Friedman, M.D., from the Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York City, and colleagues compared chronic conditions among survivors of Rb (53.6 percent with bilateral disease) from the Retinoblastoma Survivor Study with 2,377 non-Rb controls, consisting of the Childhood Cancer Survivor Study sibling cohort.
The researchers found that 86.6 percent of Rb survivors had a least one chronic condition and 71.1 percent had a grade 3 to 4 (severe/life-threatening) condition at a median follow-up of 42 years. For Rb survivors versus non-Rb controls, the adjusted relative risk of a chronic condition was 1.4, and for a grade 3 to 4 condition was 7.6 (both P < 0.01). Regardless of laterality, survivors were at increased risk for chronic conditions. After exclusion of ocular conditions and second malignant neoplasms (SMNs) and stratifying by laterality, only those with bilateral disease were at increased risk of any nonocular, non-SMN condition or grade 3 to 4 nonocular, non-SMN condition (relative risks, 1.2 and 1.7, respectively).
“Survivors of Rb have an increased risk of chronic conditions compared with non-Rb controls,” the authors write. “After excluding ocular conditions and SMNs, this excess risk was found to persist only for those with bilateral disease.”
One author disclosed financial ties to the pharmaceutical industry.
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