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In recent years the survival rate for cancer has improved enormously due to mare targeted drugs and radiation therapy. It is estimated the there will be 16 million cancer survivors in the US during 2024 and around 30 million world wide. However, the success rate of treatment and the number of survivors has highlighted the risk of serious heart conditions due those same chemo and radiation therapies.
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Meet Cardiotoxicity
The awareness of this issue came about in the 1970’s and came to be known as cardiotoxicity. In recent years there has been a 70% increase in the number of cancer treatments available and many of them are only tested in Phase 1 and Phase 2 clinical trials. Cancer treatment is moving so rapidly that doctors have little chance of keeping up with the new therapies and their associated side effects. A major side effect of these treatments is cardiotoxicity.
Cardio Oncology is the meeting point of heart and cancer specialists. It is recognized as hugely important that oncology specialists understand cardiovascular disease and cardiologists understand the effects of chemo and radiation therapy. Different types of cancer have varying degrees of risk of causing cardiovascular issues due to either chemotherapy, radiation therapy or both through cardiotoxicity.
Despite guidelines being drawn up and accepted in 2022 to assess cancer patients’ heart condition prior to and during cancer treatment, there has been a very slow uptake and as a result many cancer survivors today are left with progressive heart failure with no baseline knowledge of their heart condition prior to treatment. Additionally, very few treatment centers offer a cardiac assessment to help identify those patients who are at high risk of developing heart issues.
Equally disturbing is the fact that many cancer patients develop heart problems during cancer therapy and once again, because of no prior testing of patients the opportunity to change the doses of chemotherapy and/or radiation therapy during treatment to minimize the risk of heart issues is also lost.