Study compares soft tissue sarcoma rates among US military servicemen and men in the general population

A recent analysis reveals that the incidence rates of soft tissue sarcomas—cancers in muscle, fat, blood vessels, nerves, and tendons—are lower in young U.S. active-duty military servicemen compared with those in the general population, but higher in middle-aged servicemen, perhaps due to greater cumulative exposure to toxins.

The findings are published in Cancer.

Soft tissue sarcomas are rare cancers arising all over the body, in various organs and tissues such as muscle, fat, and viscera. Most sarcomas arise sporadically, but a small subset arise from exposure to radiation or other environmental factors.

Because individuals in the military may experience more frequent and greater exposure to such environmental risk factors, researchers compared incidence rates of soft tissue sarcomas between active-duty U.S. servicemen and men in the general U.S. population, with the goal of assessing whether they differed in the occurrence of soft tissue sarcoma, providing clues for future research on related factors.

Due to the small numbers of active servicewomen in the dataset for further analysis, a comparable evaluation could not be accurately performed in women.

After analyzing data from the Department of Defense’s Automated Central Tumor Registry (ACTUR) for active-duty servicemen and the National Cancer Institute’s Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results (SEER) program for men in the general population, soft tissue sarcoma incidence rates for men aged 18–59 years were lower in ACTUR than SEER: 14% lower overall, 22% lower among 18–39-year-olds, 15% lower among white men, and 23% lower among Black men, compared with their corresponding counterparts in the general population.

Rates of soft tissue sarcomas that had spread or metastasized were also lower in ACTUR than in SEER. However, rates of soft tissue sarcomas were higher in ACTUR than in SEER for men aged 40–59 years, especially for localized tumors.

The scientists suggest that lower rates among young servicemen may be due to better health and early detection and treatment of cancer-associated conditions within the military health system that provides universal care.

Higher rates among older servicemen, especially for localized tumors, may result from greater cumulative military-related exposures to toxins or earlier diagnosis of the cancer due to universal care, compared with the U.S. general population.

“Our study is descriptive, hoping to provide clues for analytical studies on factors associated with the differences between the military and general populations,” said senior author Kangmin Zhu, MD, Ph.D., of the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences. “Further descriptive research with more recent data containing a larger number of military patients is warranted.”