Mortality in cancer patients with congenital anomalies across different age groups: trend analysis and prognostic risk factors

PurposeCongenital anomalies are one of the causes of the high mortality rate in children diagnosed with cancer. However, there is a gap of evidence of the rate of cancer mortality in older patients who had congenital anomalies. The study, therefore, aimed to investigate the epidemiology of cancer mortality in those patients. MethodsData were retrieved for patients with cancer and died due to congenital causes throughout 43 years from Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results program SEER. The age of patients was divided into nine groups each is formed of 10 years interval. Joinpoint analysis was used to calculate the trends of Cancer mortality and Cox proportional hazard ratio to identify the mortality risk factors. ResultsWe have included 2682 patients with death associated with congenital malformation. The mortality of cancer patients due to congenital anomalies greatly enhanced in the last years with the overall average annual percent was 3.8%. Interestingly, congenital anomalies had less mortality risk than other causes reported in SEER. Moreover, age, sex, radiation, chemotherapy, and behavior of tumor were significantly associated with higher survival in patients with congenital anomalies. ConclusionsCancer patients with congenital anomalies had less mortality risk than patients with other diseases reported in SEER. The mortality rates decreased recently, with the most mortality in the bone marrow and prostate tumors. Implications for Cancer SurvivorsCongenital anomalies are considered the least studied diseases in cancer patients. In this study, we studied how congenital anomalies did not increase the risk for cancer. However, our analysis implied the congenital anomalies in the male reproductive system were associated with the highest risk of cancer.