Javier Pascual, Consultant Medical Oncologist at University Hospital Virgen de la Victoria, shared on LinkedIn:
“Our new study on clonal hematopoiesis (CHIP) in long-term breast cancer survivors has been published in The Breast.
As breast cancer survival continues to improve, an increasing number of women live for decades after their diagnosis. This makes understanding the long-term biological consequences of cancer treatment just as important as treating the disease itself.
In our study, we analysed blood samples from 189 long-term breast cancer survivors, collected a median of 11 years after diagnosis, using whole-exome sequencing to investigate clonal hematopoiesis of indeterminate potential (CHIP)-a process in which blood stem cells acquire somatic mutations that have been associated with cardiovascular disease, hematological malignancies and aging.
What did we find?
- We found no evidence that previous chemotherapy was associated with a higher prevalence of CHIP more than a decade after treatmen in breast-cancer survivors.
- The mutational landscape was dominated by the canonical CHIP genes DNMT3A and TET2, consistent with previous population studies.
- Neither age, radiotherapy, smoking nor obesity independently predicted CHIP in this cohort of long-term survivors.
These findings suggest that any chemotherapy-related clonal expansion may not persist in most breast cancer survivors over the long term, building on prior similar results observed with a relative short-term follow-up by Stefania Morganti and colleagues (JCO, 2024), providing reassuring evidence regarding the durable genomic impact of adjuvant chemotherapy.
Beyond the results themselves, I believe this work highlights the importance of studying cancer survivorship. As oncologists and researchers, our goal is not only to cure cancer but also to understand and minimize its long-term consequences.
I would like to sincerely thank all the patients who participated in this study, my co-authors, and the multidisciplinary teams whose collaboration made this work possible.”
Title: The landscape of clonal hematopoiesis of indeterminate potential in long-term breast cancer survivors
Authors: Laura Gálvez-Carvajal, Iñaki Comino-Méndez, Esperanza López-López, Alberto Ríos, Eduardo Zamorano, Silvia Sequero, Álvaro González, Sofía Ruíz, María Carmen Ocaña, Alicia Garrido-Aranda, Rocío Lavado-Valenzuela, Antonio Rueda-Domínguez, Javier Pascual, Emilio Alba
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