Chemotherapy agents and hypertension: a focus on angiogenesis blockade

Two observations highlight the importance of this review. The first observation is that high blood pressure is the most frequent comorbid condition in cancer registries which directly affects the prognosis of the patient. The second observation is that long-term cancer survivors now have a higher risk of cardiovascular disease than of recurrent cancer, and hypertension contributes to this risk. New approaches to cancer chemotherapy disrupt angiogenesis; subjects receiving these agents often have an associated increase in blood pressure. In this article we concentrate on observations published over the past 2 years in this rapidly developing field, outline putative mechanisms and time frames for these prohypertensive effects, and conclude with some management recommendations based on current knowledge.