Second primary cancers - causes, incidence and the future.

Thanks to continually improving screening programs, diagnostic, and treatment methods, the survival rate in newly diagnosed cancer patients is increasing. With this improvement in survival, attention is now being focused on potential longterm complications such as multiple primary tumors, which represent a leading cause of late nonrelapse mortality. The number of patients who survive cancer dia-gnosis is growing by 2% each year. Multiple primary neoplasms have become the third most common finding in oncology since 1890s, when they were first described. This review aims to summarize recent information regarding the multiple primary neoplasms, elucidate the definition, etiology, association with the primary cancer treatment, genetic and environmental dispositions and finally, it recapitulates new approaches to identification of the risk factors for multiple cancers.