A common chemotherapy drug could carry a toxic inheritance for children and grandchildren of adolescent cancer survivors, Washington State University-led research indicates.
The study, published online in iScience, found that male rats who received the drug ifosfamide during adolescence had offspring and grand-offspring with increased incidence of disease. While other research has shown that cancer treatments can increase patients’ chance of developing disease later in life, this is one of the first-known studies showing that susceptibility can be passed down to a third generation of unexposed offspring.
“The findings suggest that if a patient receives chemotherapy, and then later has children, that their grandchildren, and even great-grandchildren, may have an increased disease susceptibility due to their ancestors’ chemotherapy exposure,” said Michael Skinner, a WSU biologist and corresponding author on the study.
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