Trends in the Risk of Second Primary Malignancies (SPMs) Among Survivors of Chronic Lymphocytic Leukemia(CLL)
Authors: Kumar Vivek , Ailawadhi Sikander , Bojanini Leyla , Mehta Aditya , Singh Anshika , Sher Taimur , Roy Vivek , Vishnu Prakash , Marin-Acevedo Julian A , Alegria Victoria R. , Paulus Aneel , Aulakh Sonikpreet , Iqbal Madiha , Manochakian Rami , Tan Winston , Chanan-Khan Asher A. , Ailawadhi Meghna 
Published: October 2019

Background: CLL is the most common leukemia diagnosis in adults and its treatment has undergone significant change from chemotherapy, to immunotherapy and now targeted kinase inhibitors, leading to improved overall survival (OS). With improving survivorship, SPMs can occur but an in-depth analysis of risks and trends of SPMs in CLL survivors is lacking. We performed a population-based analysis to evaluate this.

Methods: Patients in the Surveillance, Epidemiology and End Results (SEER) database diagnosed with CLL between 1973-2015 were included. Due to variation in management techniques over time, the cohort was divided in four time periods: 1973-1982, 1983-1992, 1993-2002 and 2003-2015. We evaluated differences in risk for SPMs among CLL survivors compared to risk of individual malignancies expected in the general population during these time periods and studied the effect of demographics and time since CLL diagnosis.

Results: Over a nearly 270,000 person-year follow up, 6,467 new SPMs were diagnosed with a standardized incidence ratio (SIR) of 1.2 (95% CI 1.17-1.23), which resulted in a 39 excess cancers per 10,000 population. The CLL survivors had a 20% overall increased risk of developing SPMs (excluding non-squamous skin cancer) compared to the general population. The risks for both solid (SIR 1.15 CI 95% 1.12-1.18) and hematological malignancies (SIR 1.61 95% CI 1.5-1.73) was higher than the expected in the general population. However, the risk for individual cancers was heterogeneous. The tumors associated with the highest risk were Hodgkin lymphoma (almost 8 times higher), Kaposi Sarcoma (4 times), non-epithelial skin cancers (4 times), salivary gland cancer (3 times) and acute lymphocytic leukemia (3 times). In contrast, tumors in the hepatobiliary system, female breast and female genital system were associated with a lower risk than the general population. The highest SIR across the study periods was observed in the younger population (ages 15-49). Although the risk increased in all ethnicities, it was statistically significant only in Caucasians. There was no gender-wise difference in SIR during any of the four time periods. A statistically significant increase in SIR was observed for both men and women from 1973-1982 to 2003-2015. This was mostly due to an increase in risk of hematological malignancies from 1.08 early in the study to 2.56 in the most recent study period. The SIR in solid tumors did not change significantly over time; in absolute terms, however, lung carcinoma contributed the most to the excess risk, followed by non-epithelial skin cancers and non-Hodgkin's lymphoma. The risk of developing a SPM was higher for the CLL survivors during most of the latency periods, but it was statistically significant during the 2-5 months and 12-59 months after diagnosis. A multivariate analysis was conducted to evaluate the impact of period of diagnosis on the development of SPMs among these patients. After adjusting for gender, ethnicity, radiation therapy, chemotherapy, and age at diagnosis of CLL, patients diagnosed with CLL in the most recent time period were at 45% higher risk of developing SPMs as compared to the patient diagnosed during 1973-1982 (Hazard ratio(HR) =1.45 95%CI:1.34-1.6, p<0.001). Moreover increased HRs were also observed for 1983-1992 and 1993-2002 time periods (Fig. 1)

Conclusions: With improving therapeutics for cancer treatment, survivorship is improving as well and the risk of SPMs needs to be better understood and addressed. This is truer for CLL, where majority of patients have a favorable survival. The risk of SPMs was 20% higher in CLL survivors than in the general population and was most prominent in the survivors aged 15-49 years at the time of CLL diagnosis. The risk of individual malignancies may be heterogenous but there has been an increase in risk of SPMs over time, mainly due to an increase of secondary hematological malignancies in recent years. Active survivorship plans and long-term surveillance for SPMs is crucial for improved outcomes of patients with a history of CLL.

Disclosures

Ailawadhi: Janssen: Consultancy; Celgene: Consultancy; Amgen: Consultancy; Takeda: Consultancy; Pharmacyclics: Research Funding.