Older cancer survivors more apt to die of heart disease than cancer

Reuters Health - 17/03/2022 - As cancer survivors age, death from cardiovascular disease (CVD) often overtakes death from the primary cancer, a study from the UK shows.

The findings "strengthen calls" to raise awareness of CVD risk in older cancer survivors and to "prioritize" CVD prevention alongside the prevention of cancer recurrence as time passes since cancer diagnosis, researchers write in JACC: CardioOncology.

They determined cause-specific mortality for more than 104,000 adults aged 40 and older who were diagnosed with one of nine common cancers (colorectal, breast, bladder, lung, uterus, non-Hodgkin lymphoma, malignant melanoma, prostate and leukemia).

There was a "clear pattern" of increasing mortality from CVD over time for older survivors of most of the nine primary cancers examined, which was most pronounced in those aged 80+ at diagnosis, report Dr. Helen Strongman of the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine and colleagues.

For cancer survivors aged 80 and older at diagnosis, death from CVD overtook death from all nine primary cancers between two and 11 years after cancer diagnosis.

For cancer survivors aged 60 to 79 years at diagnosis, death from CVD overtook death from seven primary cancer types after five to 17 years.

CVD mortality remained low throughout follow-up in cancer survivors 40 to 59 years old at diagnosis.

"The importance of postcancer monitoring with care focused on risk for cancer relapse is crucial," writes Dr. Linda Jacobs of the University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, in a linked editorial.

"Post-treatment cardiovascular monitoring and follow-up care as well as lifelong monitoring for all late effects of the treatment received must be a priority in cancer care as well," Dr. Jacobs says.

"Furthering our understanding requires additional information on CVD mortality in these patients compared with age-matched control subjects without cancer, as well as detailed data on cancer treatments received, which will help providers best care for these patients," she adds.

SOURCE: https://bit.ly/37qegOU and https://bit.ly/3CPyYTT JACC: CardioOncology, online March 15, 2022.

By Reuters Staff



Posted on 17 March, 20227 April, 2022