Study unearths link between heart disease and advanced breast cancer

Along with Cancer, Cardiovascular Disease (CVD) - comprising coronary heart disease, stroke, high blood pressure, heart failure, hypertension and arterial disease is the leading cause of mortality in the US. A seminal study by researchers from the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center contends that the immunosuppressive state induced by CVD potentially accelerates the growth and spread of breast tumor cells.

The case-control study compared the presence of CVD between patients with early (stage I-II) and advanced cancer (stage III-IV) and found the increased risk both among patients with locally advanced and metastatic breast cancer.

It found women diagnosed with advanced breast cancer 10% more likely to carry pre-existing CVD compared to those with early-stage cancer. In fact, those with a specific breast cancer subtype, hormone receptor-positive (HR+) and HER2-negative (HER2-) were found 11% more likely to have pre-existing CVD.

According to the National Cancer Institute, almost 70% of all breast cancer cases are HR+/HER2?. If detected early, they is more amenable to treatments, but the 5-year relative survival rate is only 34%, which underlines the need for prevention and early detection.

This study can play a pivotal role to help develop personalized screening strategies to catch the disease early, notwithstanding the research limitations like susceptibility to residual bias, potential for CVD misclassification, lack of control for factors like smoking, and the impact of an all-white cohort on the generalizability of findings.

Read more: