Breast cancer radiation boosts heart disease risk

Experts suggest the hearts of long-term survivors may need additional attention.

By Victoria Stagg Elliott, AMNews staff. March 12, 2007.

Women who received radiotherapy treatment for breast cancer in the 1970s and 1980s have an increased risk of dying from cardiovascular disease, and this risk is even greater if the left breast was treated, according to a study published in BMC Cancer.

British researchers analyzed data on 20,871 women from the Thames Cancer Registry in England and found that women with left-sided breast cancer who received radiotherapy from 1971 to 1988 had a 27% increased risk of dying from cardiovascular disease over women with right-sided disease who did not receive this treatment. The chance that these women would die from heart attacks and related conditions also was 25% higher than women who received radiotherapy only on the right side. The study appeared in the Jan. 15 issue.

Radiotherapy during this era frequently hit the heart. This study is the latest to document that, although the treatment strategy markedly decreased breast cancer mortality, its benefit is somewhat offset by a long-term increase in heart trouble.

"It's a very important issue in patients who receive left-sided breast radiotherapy," said Catherine Park, MD, assistant professor of radiation oncology at the University of California, San Francisco. She was not involved with this study. "We're very concerned about the heart."

But while the problem is increasingly recognized, it's still unknown what, if anything, should be done regarding heart care for these women.

"This is the most important question that we don't really know the answer to," said Eleanor Harris, MD, associate professor of radiation oncology at the H. Lee Moffit Cancer Center and Research Institute in Tampa, Fla., who was not affiliated with this study. "We don't know if we should be doing more screening or more intervention in these women."