A revolutionary recent study has found that the toxic effects of a typical chemotherapy drug could be passed to the third generation of adolescent cancer survivors.

The study, published within the journal iScience, found that adolescent male rats who received ifosfamide, a typical chemotherapy drug, had an increased probability of passing on the disease to their children and grandchildren.

The research led by Washington State University (WSU) is the primary one to search out that the susceptibility to disease because of cancer treatment could be inherited all the way down to the third generation of unexposed offspring.

“The findings suggest that if a patient receives chemotherapy, after which later has children, that their grandchildren, and even great-grandchildren, could have an increased disease susceptibility because of their ancestors’ chemotherapy exposure,” Michael Skinner, a WSU biologist and corresponding writer on the study, said, reported SciTechDaily.

Nonetheless, the researchers don’t want people to avoid chemotherapy as a consequence of the outcomes of the study, because it is kind of an efficient treatment for cancer.

As an alternative, the researchers suggest cancer patients utilize cryopreservation techniques to freeze sperm or ova before starting chemotherapy in the event that they plan on having children later in life.

Within the study, a set of young male rats were treated with ifosfamide over three days, just like the treatment of an adolescent cancer patient. Next, the rats were bred with female rats, previously unexposed to the drug. The offspring from the mating was bred again with a special set of unexposed rats.

Not only the primary, but in addition the second-generation offspring, who had no direct exposure to the drug, had a greater incidence of disease, the study found.

Minor differences by generation and sex notwithstanding, the offspring exhibited a greater incidence of kidney and testis disease, delayed onset of puberty, and irregularly low anxiety.

The researchers also studied the rats’ epigenomes, and located epigenetic changes in two generations were related to the chemotherapy exposure of the first-generation rats.

“We could potentially determine if an individual’s exposure had these epigenetic shifts that would direct what diseases they’re going to develop, and what they’re going to potentially pass on to their grandchildren,” Skinner said. “We could use epigenetics to assist diagnose whether or not they’re going to have a susceptibility to disease.” 

To assemble further evidence to substantiate the outcomes of the study, Skinner and his team are currently working on a study involving former adolescent cancer patients, and analyzing the results of chemotherapy on fertility and disease susceptibility in later life.

A greater understanding of chemotherapy’s effect on epigenetics could help patients have an idea of their probabilities of developing certain diseases, allowing probabilities of earlier prevention and treatment, Skinner said.