Therapy-Related Leukemia Risk Calculator for Cancer Survivors

Therapy-Related Leukemia Risk Calculator for Cancer Survivors

Therapy-related AML has tripled over 30 years as more cancer survivors live longer after genotoxic chemotherapy and radiation — yet patients and oncologists rarely have accessible tools to quantify this long-term risk when making treatment decisions or planning survivorship surveillance.

Build a therapy-related AML (tAML) risk calculator that estimates a cancer survivor's cumulative risk of developing treatment-related leukemia based on their prior therapy history. Users would input their original cancer type, chemotherapy agents received (with approximate doses), radiation fields, and time since treatment, and receive a contextualized tAML risk estimate with comparison to age-matched population risks.

The tool would also serve as an educational resource explaining which chemotherapy agents carry the highest tAML risk (alkylating agents, topoisomerase II inhibitors), the typical latency period between treatment and tAML onset, the warning signs to watch for (fatigue, unexplained bruising, unusual blood counts), and when to discuss blood monitoring with a physician. A survivorship care plan generator would produce a summary document patients could bring to primary care or survivorship clinic appointments.

As the cancer survivor population grows — now over 18 million in the US alone — the complications of their prior treatments become an increasingly important public health challenge. tAML is rare but lethal (with median survival under a year), and many survivors have never been counseled about this risk. A tool that makes the risk visible and actionable could prompt appropriate surveillance and earlier detection in this growing population.

Who Is This For?

Cancer survivors who received chemotherapy or radiation, oncologists counseling patients about long-term treatment effects, and primary care physicians managing cancer survivor follow-up.

Skills & Tools Needed

• Web development with calculation logic
• Epidemiological data on tAML risk by treatment type
• Medical writing for patient-facing risk communication
• Knowledge of chemotherapy agents and their leukemogenic risk profiles
• UX design for health calculators and survivorship tools

Feasibility

medium — Published tAML risk data by treatment type exists in the literature; the main challenge is translating this into a well-calibrated, validated calculator with appropriate uncertainty communication.

Inspired by: Big Jump in Therapy-Related AML Amid Growth in Population of Cancer Survivors