ABSTRACT
It is estimated that in the United States about 1.37 million new cancers may be diagnosed and about 564,000 persons may die of this disease. 1 The incidence of a second primary malignancy among cancer survivors is about 10 to 12% annually. Cancer patients can be divided into three groups:
Those receiving standard or experimental therapy;
Those that become unresponsive to these therapies;
Those in remission and carrying the risk of a second new cancer and nonneoplastic diseases such as aplastic anemia, retardation of growth in some children, and delayed necrosis in some organs such as brain, liver, bone, and muscle.
