Giving Compass' Take:

• Jake Siegel explains why bone marrow transplant patients need to be aware of the risks of developing new cancer after large doses of radiation. 

• How can funders work to educate bone marrow transplant recipients about the risks that they face? Can these risks be reduced? 

• Learn about funding cancer research. 

A new study draws a striking link between the intensity of radiation that patients receive before a bone marrow transplant and their risk of developing a new cancer.

Patients who undergo high-dose, total-body irradiation, or TBI, are at highest risk — nearly eight times greater than the general population, researchers found. Patients who receive the increasingly common low-dose TBI have a significantly lower cancer risk — but that risk is still twice as high as that of the general population.

The results stress the importance of lifelong monitoring for all transplant patients, said Dr. Scott Baker, the study’s lead author and director of the Fred Hutch Survivorship Program.

“The biggest takeaway is that people need to be aware of this risk,” Baker said. “For those patients who received high-dose radiation, they need to be especially vigilant about following all the standard cancer prevention and screening recommendations. And younger patients, especially women, should talk to their doctor about starting screening for some cancers, such as breast, at an earlier age than recommended for the general population.”

Read the full article about radiation dose and cancer risk by Jake Siegel at Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center.