Influence of growth hormone therapy on the occurrence of a second neoplasm in survivors of childhood cancer.

CONTEXT: Growth hormone (GH) deficiency is a common late effect of cranial irradiation. However, concerns have been raised that GH treatment might lead to an increased risk of a second neoplasm (SN).

OBJECTIVE: To study the impact of GH treatment on the risk of SN in a French cohort of survivors of childhood cancer (CCS) treated before 1986.

DESIGN AND SETTING: Cohort study and nested case-control study.

PARTICIPANTS: Of the 2852 survivors, with a median follow-up of 26 years, 196 had received GH therapy (median delay from cancer diagnosis: 5.5 years).

MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES: Occurrence of SN.

RESULTS: In total, 374 survivors developed a SN, including 40 who had received GH therapy. In a multivariate analysis, GH treatment did not increase the risk of secondary non-meningioma brain tumors (RR: 0.6, 95% CI: 0.2-1.5, P = 0.3), secondary non-brain cancer (RR: 0.7, 95% CI: 0.4-1.2, P = 0.2), or meningioma (RR: 1.9, 95% CI: 0.9-4, P = 0.09). Nevertheless, we observed a slight non-significant increase in the risk of meningioma with GH duration: 1.6-fold (95% CI: 1.2-3.0) after an exposure of less than 4 years vs 2.3-fold (95% CI: 0.9-5.6) after a longer exposure (P for trend = 0.07) confirmed by the results of a case-control study.

CONCLUSION: This study confirms the overall safety of GH use in survivors of childhood cancer, which does not increase the risk of a SN. The slight excess in the risk of meningioma in patients with long-term GH treatment is non-significant and could be due to difficulties in adjustment on cranial radiation volume/dose and/or undiagnosed meningioma predisposing conditions.