What is the link between cancer and heart health?

May 10, 2019 / BIOON / - about every 40 seconds, an American has a heart attack The American Heart Association says heart disease is still the number one cause of death in the United States Greg Hundley, M.D., says what people don't usually realize is that heart disease affects people who are already fighting cancer He is the director of the health center at the Federal University of Virginia (VCU) and a researcher on the cancer prevention and control program at VCU's Macy's cancer center In fact, for many women with breast cancer, the latest data shows that they are more likely to die from cardiovascular disease than from breast cancer itself For more than a decade, Hundley has been studying the effects of chemotherapy and radiation on heart health to reduce heart failure in cancer patients and develop more personalized treatments Photo source: http://cn.bing.com during American Heart month, VCU news interviewed Hundley to discuss this complex field of heart disease oncology What is cardiac oncology? Cardiac oncology is the study of heart and vascular diseases in cancer patients It's not about tumors in the heart, it's about the relationship between cancer treatment and their impact on the heart What is the connection between cancer and heart health? There are many connections between cancer and heart Part of heart disease oncology is managing risk factors for both diseases so patients don't experience adverse heart events Risk factors can make a person vulnerable - in this case, cancer or cardiovascular disease Interestingly, many cancer risk factors are also cardiovascular risk factors These factors include obesity, previous or current smoking history, family history of heart disease or hypertension Our job is to determine if a cancer patient is at risk for heart disease and what we can do to reduce the risk of sustained cardiovascular events for him or her during treatment People must also consider the development of cardiovascular disease after cancer treatment Photo source: http://cn.bing.com we use several strategies to treat cancer, including intravenous injection or blocking the blood supply of cancer cells These strategies can hurt the heart For example, the heart is the most active organ in our metabolism It beats day and night If anticancer drugs try to disrupt the metabolism of cancer cells during their rapid division, the side effect may be to disrupt the metabolism of the heart What does VCU health do in the field of cardiac oncology? We do three things in three categories clinical, research and education First, clinically, how do we help patients Oncologists, doctors who treat cancer, work with cardiologists to observe three types of patients in a special cardiooncology clinic The patients they looked at included: 1) an early risk of cancer or heart disease, 2) being treated for cancer that may or has caused heart disease, or 3) having completed cancer treatment but still at risk of heart disease The second is research Our findings often include "translational science," where we try to prevent damage to individual heart cells after cancer treatment This is called "translation" because once we find a strategy to prevent cell damage, we will "translate" this finding to patients in clinical research What's unique about VCU health is that researchers also study patients in the form of participants or clinical trials The third category is education Education is very important Not only do we educate our patients about the possible effects of cancer treatment on their cardiovascular health, but as an academic medical center, we are educating the next generation of student researchers and clinicians who will treat these diseases in the future Photo source: http://cn.bing.com does everyone who receives cancer treatment have the risk of heart failure? No, not everyone who receives cancer treatment has the risk of heart failure When we assess someone's risk, there are many factors to consider We looked at patients' risk factors (such as underlying illness, high blood pressure, obesity, and smoking), which may make them more prone to heart disease We will also consider a person's type of cancer and the extent to which it develops All of this has to be considered before we try to determine if a person will have cardiovascular problems during treatment and individualized treatment options Reference materials: [1] what are the connections between cancer and heart health? [2] Laxmi s Mehta et al Cardiovascular disease and breast cancer: where these entities intersect: a scientific statement from the American Heart Association Circulation Https://doi.org/10.1161/cir.0000000556