Risk factors for myocardial infarction in cancer patients

The increasingly long survival of cancer patients raises the question whether there might be an association between myocardial infarction (MI) and different types of cancer, especially since these different diseases share some of the same risk factors, like smoking. We describe a retrospective study in which we examined the autopsied hearts of 1642 cancer patients to determine the incidence of MI in different types of cancer and then studied the records of 106 of these cancer patients with complicated of fatal MI to determine their risk factors. The incidence of MI among the 1642 cancer patients was 6.5%. It was significantly higher in patients with squamous cell type cancers of the lung, head and neck, and urothelial tract cancer as compared with other types of cancers. The major coronary artery disease (CAD) risk factors in these patients were smoking, hypertension and left ventricular hypertrophy. Before therapy begins, cancer patients, especially those with squamous-cell-type cancer, should be screened for CAD risk factors, such as smoking, hypertension and left ventricular hypertrophy, and treated accordingly.