About this website
Failing Hearts, Fighting Cancer
The background
The Past
For myself, I had oropharyngeal cancer, had no known heart issues prior to treatment but developed serious heart issues, starting with heart flutter, progressing to A-Fibrillation in the last couple of weeks of my treatment. Since treatment ended, my left ventricle ejection fraction dropped to 30% (it should be 60-70%), I have needed a heart ablation, a defibrillator/pacemaker fitted. I also have congestive heart failure.
I began to believe there was some sort of link between my cancer treatment and my heart disease.
The Present
2024 and all that…
Now in 2024, my heart condition has progressively become worse and this year require a Watchman procedure to block off my left ventricle atrium because I am in A-Fib 35% of the time and at serious risk of developing life threatening blood clots. I am also at risk of sudden cardiac arrest. So I started researching and asking questions.
I specifically wanted to know whether there was a direct link between cancer therapy (both chemo and radiation) and chronic heart disease and unfortunately there is.
So Exactly What is Going On?
I started by asking questions and seeking answers from my doctors. The answers I received were somewhat surprising but on reflection, not unexpected. When I asked about the progression of my heart disease and cardiotoxcity in the four years since beginning cancer treatment my cardio doc initially gave me the ‘Well, at your age you could have developed these symptoms anyway…’ when I pushed harder by posing the question that because there was no prior testing of my heart condition, could it be that the cancer therapy is now killing me?’ The answer was a reluctant, ‘Yes.
Moving onto my radiation oncologist and posing questions about cardiotoxicity, his reaction was highly defensive, informed me that the radiation went nowhere near my heart and perhaps I should be taking to my chemo doctor. (My chemo doc left the practice right at the end of my treatment and I wasn’t assigned to another.) Not having the knowledge I now have I left it there and he promptly ushered me out of the building….
My GP was rather more forthcoming. Obviously he knows what I have been through and am going through and did explain that although people might think medicine is highly advanced there are huge areas about which doctors know very little and cardiotoxicity and the dangers of chemo/radiation therapy are neither adequately researched nor do they have sufficient data.
There is also the dichotomy between curing the cancer, which was going to kill me or surviving the treatment with the risk of dying from heart failure some time later.
Getting to the Nub of the Issue
Cancer therapy, both chemotherapy and radiation therapy do cause cardiotoxicity and people can die from heart issues after cancer treatment.
Despite cardiotoxicity being well know about, guidelines were only issued on 2022 that all cancer patients should receive cardiac assessments before, during and after cancer treatment.
As of 2024, very few cancer centers (and of these only the main ones), have adopted these guidelines. Most people receiving cancer treatment today are never informed of the risks of cardiac disease due the cancer therapy. Nor do they have a cardiac assessment prior to chemotherapy and radiation cancer treatment.
Simple tests for potassium and magnesium during treatment may indicate that patients are developing cardiotoxicity, but these tests are not generally done as part of standard cancer treatment, despite recommendations issued in 2008.