ROCHESTER, Minn. -- One in 10 patients who come to the hospital with the most severe type of heart attack have a history of cancer, showing that this is an emerging subgroup of heart patients, according to Mayo Clinic research published in Mayo Clinic Proceedings . In addition, the study found that these patients have a three times higher risk of noncardiac death. Meanwhile, their risk of cardiac death is not higher ? both at the time of their acute heart attack and over long-term follow-up.
Researchers conducted a retrospective cohort study of 2,346 patients seen at Mayo Clinic's Rochester campus for an ST-elevation myocardial infarction ? the most severe acute heart attack. The retrospective covered a 10-year timeframe, beginning in 2000, when the newest and current types of stents were introduced into clinical practice. The patients were followed for acute and long-term outcomes for an average of six years.
"We've watched cancer survivorship increase over the past 2½ decades, which is wonderful, but it has led to new challenges, such as handling of downstream illnesses and side effects to an extent never encountered before," says Joerg Herrmann, M.D., senior author and interventional cardiologist at Mayo Clinic. "In particular, as cardiologists, we wanted to know if cancer and its therapies left these patients debilitated from a cardiovascular disease standpoint."
Other study findings are:
"This study supports the importance of cardiologists and oncologists working together to care for these patients," Dr. Herrmann says. "Clearly, our goal is that the cancer patients of today do not become the cardiac patients of the future and, if they do, that we comprehensively see them through."
This concept of care, which has become known as "cardio-oncology," is an emerging medical discipline.
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Mayo Clinic co-authors are:
About Mayo Clinic Proceedings
Mayo Clinic Proceedings is a monthly peer-reviewed medical journal that publishes original articles and reviews dealing with clinical and laboratory medicine, clinical research, basic science research, and clinical epidemiology. Mayo Clinic Proceedings is sponsored by the Mayo Foundation for Medical Education and Research as part of its commitment to physician education. It publishes submissions from authors worldwide. The journal has been published for more than 80 years and has a circulation of 130,000. Articles are available at http://www.mayoclinicproceedings.org/ .
About Mayo Clinic
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