Cancer patients may have a higher risk of dying from cardiovascular disease

There’s new data to further support the idea that as cancer patients survive longer due to better treatments, they may instead be dying from other conditions. Researchers looked at more than 3.2 million cancer patients and found that about 1 in 10 died due to cardiovascular disease, the vast majority of whom had heart disease. Cancer patients had a tenfold higher risk of dying from cardiovascular disease than those without cancer, although that difference decreased as cancer survivors got older, since older age is a risk for cardiovascular disease in the general population. People with certain cancer types —  breast, prostate, or bladder — had the highest risk. The first year after an endometrial cancer diagnosis was also associated with a high risk of cardiovascular disease, which the authors suggest means that cardiologists ought to get involved earlier to help these patients avoid negative outcomes.