Multiple primary cancers: an overview

Abstract

The prevalence of patients living after a diagnosis of cancer has increased due to the rising incidence, better treatments and improved survival rate. The risk of further primary cancers might be expected to be rising because of the persisting effects of genetic and behavioural risk factors, long-term side-effects of chemo and radiotherapy, increased diagnostic sensitivity, and aging. The prevalence of multiple primary cancers is between 0.7% and 11.7%, and cancer patients have a 20% higher risk of new primary cancer compared with the general population. Breast, colon-rectum, and prostate are the sites with highest prevalence of multiple tumours since these tumours have higher incidence and longer survival. In this paper we review the theme of multiple tumours and summarise the most frequent cancer syndromes that lead to multiple tumours.