Heart disease risk for cancer patients

CANCER PATIENTS are at higher risk of dying from cardiovascular disease than the general population, research suggests.

A study found that the risk of dying from heart disease and stroke was almost four times higher in the first year after a cancer diagnosis compared with the general population, and remained higher throughout the rest of life.

Experts are unsure why people with cancer have a higher risk of heart disease, but cancer treatment itself or lifestyle factors – such as being overweight, not exercising or drinking too much alcohol – may be to blame.

The new research, published in the European Heart Journal, compared the US population with more than 3.2m cancer survivors.

It found that, of people suffering 28 different cancers, 38 per cent went on to die from their cancer while 11 per cent died from cardiovascular disease.

People with cancer had a higher risk of death from cardiovascular disease for the rest of their lives, but the risk was higher the younger somebody was diagnosed with the disease.

Among people diagnosed with cancer before the age of 55 who went on to survive their cancer, the risk of dying from cardiovascular disease was more than 10 times higher than that for the general population.

Dr Kathleen Sturgeon, an assistant professor in public health sciences at Penn State College of Medicine in the US, who co-led the study, said: “These findings show that a large proportion of certain cancer patients will die of cardiovascular disease, including heart disease, stroke, aneurysm, high blood pressure and damage to blood vessels.

“The risk of death from cardiovascular diseases is several times that of the general population in the first year of diagnosis.”