Identifying CV Risk Factors in Patients With Breast Cancer

Cardiovascular disease continues to be a growing concern for bad cancer patients.

In this video, Dawn L. Hershman, MD, head of the Breast Cancer Program at the Herbert Irving Comprehensive Cancer Center in New York, suggests that oncologists should take care of patients as a whole after the diagnosis of cancer.

Here is a transcript of his remarks:

We know that women are more likely to die from cardiovascular disease than from bad cancer. We have been diagnosed with bad cancer because many women are successful in their diagnosis and our treatments have been developed so far, but many women and even doctors do not know it. When women are diagnosed, they sometimes focus so much on their bad cancer that they forget that there are other elements of their care that may even be related to their bad cancer.

Sometimes the treatment itself can lead to weight gain, which is a risk factor for bad cancer. Some treatments may increase their blood pressure, which is a risk factor, and women with a known history of diabetes or high cholesterol may not focus as much on their medications. With each cardiovascular risk factor, the probability of having a cardiac event increases in women. Knowing that they must manage these other side effects and symptoms, these other comorbidities, is a very important part of their care.

We have shown in the past that some of the agents that cause heart damage are increased by certain cardiac risk factors such as high blood pressure. We also know that, when they are diagnosed, women stop adhering to their medications for other reasons, because they start seeing only their oncologist and sometimes lose control of their medication. their primary care physician. We have shown that even in women with metastases, you can see that the number of heart risk factors you have can increase your likelihood of having a cardiac event, and that's one area in which the people are very focused on their bad cancer treatment. This tells us that we really need to consider patients as their entire being. We must take care of each and every one of them when they are diagnosed with cancer.

We can sometimes pay attention to the most extreme cardiac effects – as if you were losing a fraction of your ejection fraction after taking medications like Herceptin. are known complications, but rare complications. But we do not think too much about the blood pressure of people when they come to see us, or their glucose levels. We give many patients steroids that can increase their risk of diabetes and we do not pay enough attention to what might also increase their risk of having a cardiovascular event.