Overview
Clonal hematopoiesis of indeterminate potential, commonly abbreviated as CHIP, refers to a condition in which a small population of blood-forming stem cells acquires genetic changes and begins to expand in the bone marrow, even though the person does not yet have a blood cancer. CHIP becomes more common with age and has been linked to an increased risk of later hematologic malignancies, such as myelodysplastic neoplasms and leukemia, as well as some solid tumors.
In this study, researchers asked a clinically important question: among people who already have a first primary cancer, does CHIP detected before the cancer diagnosis predict a higher risk of developing a second cancer later on? The answer was yes. Patients with pre-diagnostic CHIP had a significantly higher risk of second cancers than those without CHIP.
