Cancer & Cardiovascular Disease
- A new study shows that cancer survivors have a higher risk of developing cardiovascular disease than those with no history of cancer.
- For people who are younger, making incremental lifestyle changes like regular exercise and adhering to a healthy diet can help lower your risk.
- While living in the COVID-19 era, cancer survivors may be at elevated risk for contracting the virus; safety measures are being taken by hospitals for when you need to see your doctor or go in for a scan.
Researchers Weigh In on What This Means
For the study, a total of 15,095 participants were included, with a mean age of 55.2 years, and with 12.3% reporting a cancer history. The report recommends that patients work with their doctors on an ASCVD (atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease) risk assessment and that doctors conduct clinical surveillance of cardiovascular health following a cancer diagnosis. This could “potentially reduce disease burden and prolong survival,” the report says.People with specific types of cancers were at particular risk; survivors of bladder/kidney, prostate, colorectal, lung, melanoma, or testicular cancer had a 2.7210.47 higher odds of elevated 10-year ASCVD risk, the study reports.
The researchers who conducted the study noted some important points of consideration.
“The good news is that we’re getting really good at treating cancer and we have more survivors, but we need to start thinking more carefully about the non-cancer risks following a diagnosis, one of which is cardiovascular disease,” says one of the study’s authors, Ashley Felix, an associate professor of epidemiology at Ohio State University.
“We don’t want people to survive cancer only to die prematurely of heart disease or stroke, so we need to make sure that cancer patients, and their health care team, are aware of this increased risk,” Felix says.
Xiaochen Zhang, the study’s lead researcher, notes, “The good news is that those younger individuals have a lot of time to make lifestyle changes that could move their cardiovascular risk in a positive direction. In addition to monitoring cancer survivors carefully for cardiovascular disease – and making them aware of the elevated risk – health care providers have the opportunity to guide patients toward interventions that can lower their risk,” she says.
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Protecting Yourself During COVID-19
Cancer survivors are especially vulnerable during COVID-19, due to the effect of some cancer treatments on the immune system. If you’re a survivor and you need to continue visiting your doctor for appointments and scans during COVID, there are ways to do it safely.
Dr. Elizabeth Comen, a Medical Oncologist at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, says in an earlier interview, “So we know that cancer has not gone away just because we’re in the middle of a pandemic. We also know that some elective procedures and potentially preventative care– things like colonoscopies, and mammograms, and pap smears– may have been put off a couple of months because we wanted to limit the number of people that were coming into the hospital and also keep patients at home unless they really needed to leave.”
“But fortunately, now that we have a little bit of a better hold on how to protect patients, how to disinfect, how to clean in between patients and scatter so that we’re not crowding our waiting rooms, it’s really, really important to remember to talk to your doctor about your screening mammogram or any other preventative tests that you may need,” says Dr. Comen. “We know that cancer prevention works, and what we don’t want is a huge fallout because of COVID that patients are so afraid to leave their home that they’re missing their most important tests, like their screening mammogram.”
It's Important To Continue Cancer Screenings Through COVID-19
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