Cardiovascular Disease, Cancer, and Multimorbidity Interactions: Clinical Implications

With the aging population, the frequency of cardiovascular disease (CVD), cancer, and other morbid conditions is increasing dramatically. In addition, one disease may affect the other leading to a vicious cycle.

With aging, the function of organs and systems of the human body declines including the immune system resulting in a diminished response to various pathogens and a chronic inflammatory process; these changes, in addition to other risk factors, contribute to the development of multiple morbid conditions including CVD and cancer. Multimorbidity in the elderly has become the rule rather than the exception today. Further, this association between CVD and cancer, at least partially, is explained by both diseases sharing common risk factors and from accelerated vascular aging due to cancer and its associated therapies. Multiple studies have shown that the incidence of cancer is much higher in patients with CVD compared to the general population. These associations among CVD, cancer, and their connection to systems of the human body provide an opportunity for novel therapies. Development of new drugs should be addressed to focus on multiple systems and not just only to one disease. Further, collecting information from registries and processing large amounts of data using artificial intelligence may assist the clinician when treating an individual patient in the future.

As the aging population increases, CVD, cancer, and multimorbidity will continue to constitute a major health problem in the years to come. The physician who is taking care of such a patient, in addition to knowledge, requires clinical wisdom, clinical experience, and common sense in order to apply the continuous evolving knowledge to the individual patient.