The Washington PostDemocracy Dies in Darkness

Childhood cancer survivors benefit from reduced radiation treatment

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February 28, 2017 at 11:00 a.m. EST
San Antonio resident Brittany Galan was diagnosed with leukemia when she was 6 weeks old. She underwent chemotherapy for two years and has had several health problems as a result of the treatment. (Tamir Kalifa for The Washington Post)

The rate of second malignancies in survivors of childhood cancer is declining — an improvement linked to reduced radiation treatment of the first disease, according to a new study.

The research, published Tuesday in the Journal of the American Medical Association, focused on new cancers — not recurrences — that occurred within 15 years of the original ones. The rate for such cancers fell from 2.1 percent for survivors diagnosed in the 1970s to 1.3 percent for those diagnosed in the 1990s.