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A common chemotherapy drug may increase the risk of cancer in children and grandchildren of survivors, scientists warn.
Tests in mice found that giving a single course of ifosfamide to young male rodents triggered harmful genetic changes that were passed down to at least two generations of offspring.
In addition to cancerous tumors, these changes were linked to an increased risk of kidney and reproductive diseases, and behavioral and learning problems.
The Washington State University team launched a follow-up study with young men to confirm the findings in humans.
In the meantime, they urge men and women who plan to have children to freeze their sperm or eggs before receiving chemotherapy.
But they stress that the findings don’t mean cancer patients shouldn’t take ifosfamide, which has been a lifesaver for countless Americans.
Research in mice found that giving a single course of ifosfamide to young male rodents triggered harmful genetic changes that were passed down to at least two generations of offspring (file image)
Ifosfamide is listed as one of the world’s essential medicines by the World Health Organization (WHO). It has been administered to hundreds of thousands of Americans since it gained approval in the late 1980s.
Previous research has shown that chemotherapy and other cancer treatments may increase the personal risk of patients of developing tumors later in life.
But the latest study, published in the journal iSciencehe is believed to be one of the first to suggest that the risk can be passed on to unexposed children.
Chemotherapy works by hunting down and killing fast-growing cancer cells, but it often mistakenly attacks healthy cells as it travels through the body, including the reproductive system.
WSU researchers believe that chemotherapy may cause damage to sperm that are passed on to babies.
Sperm and eggs carry genetic markers known as “epigenetics” that decide how the baby’s reproductive cells will grow.
For their study, the researchers exposed a group of young male rats to ifosfamide for three days, mimicking a course of treatment that a person might receive.
Those rats were then bred with female rats that had not been exposed to the drug, and their offspring were bred back to another group of unexposed rats.
The results showed a higher incidence of various diseases and conditions in both generations of offspring.
Lead study author Dr Michael Skinner, a WSU biologist, told DailyMail.com: ‘Surprisingly, in both men and women, there was an increased risk of breast cancer.
“But we saw even bigger effects in diseases of the testicles and prostate, even though they weren’t necessarily cancer.
‘We saw benign tumor growths. Sometimes these can turn malignant and cancer can be the end product.’
The researchers also found higher rates of kidney disease, delayed-onset puberty, and abnormally low anxiety in both generations of mice.
They said the low anxiety suggested the rodents had a reduced ability to assess risk, suggesting they had learning difficulties.
Previous research has shown that chemotherapy and other cancer treatments may increase patients’ personal risk of developing tumors later in life (file image)
Dr. Skinner stressed that he did not want people to interpret the findings and discourage chemotherapy.
“I don’t want to suggest that chemotherapy shouldn’t be used, because it can completely treat cancer. During the last decades, it [ifosfamide] it has probably been used in hundreds of thousands of Americans.
“But our study suggests that when you’re taking chemotherapy, you’re essentially damaging your germ cells for generations to come.”
The researchers also looked at the rats’ epigenomes, which influence how genes work and can turn them on and off.
Previous research has shown that toxic exposure can create epigenetic changes that can be passed from parent to child.
The results of the researchers’ analysis showed epigenetic changes in two generations linked to the chemotherapy exposure of the original mice.
The fact that these changes could be seen in the grandchildren, who had no direct exposure to the chemotherapy drug, indicates that the negative effects were passed on through epigenetic inheritance.
Dr. Skinner and colleagues at the Seattle Children’s Research Institute are currently working on a human study with former adolescent cancer patients to learn more about the effects of chemotherapy on fertility and susceptibility to disease later in life. .
He added: ‘We hope the results hold up in humans as well, and with other chemotherapies as well.
“Chemotherapy, by definition, is a toxic agent that attacks rapidly dividing cells more often than non-dividing cells.”