Cancer as a Risk Factor for Cardiovascular Disease

Improvements in early diagnosis and cancer treatments have contributed to high survival rates for many cancer patients. However, these patients often die of cardiovascular disease rather than recurrence of their cancer. Heart disease manifesting after cancer may be due to several mechanisms: shared cardiovascular risks between cancer and cardiovascular disease, inflammatory states associated with malignancies, and/or cardiotoxic effects of cancer therapy. Cancer treatment increases the risk of cardiovascular diseases directly by damaging critical structures of the heart or indirectly by promoting accelerated atherosclerosis. Estimating cardiovascular risk by using advanced imaging and monitoring of the cardiac biomarkers can be used for early detection and treatment of subclinical cardiac injury. Better knowledge of these early and late cardiac effects in cancer patients will enable adoption of both primary and secondary prevention measures of long-term treatment complications in cancer survivors.