Cardio-Oncology: a medical specialty in constant growth and evolution. the 10-year experience of the first cardio-oncology service in the United Kingdom
Authors: Andres M , Murphy T M , Poku N , Nazir S , Ramalingam S , Chambers V , Rosen S D , Lyon A R 
Published: October 2022

Introduction

Survivorship has increased significantly in cancer patients with the advent of novel therapies. However, this improvement has been at the cost of higher rates of cardiotoxicity. Cardiovascular disease has become the main cause of death or cancer therapy interruption in many of these patients. The need for specialist services to deal with these emerging problems has led to global development of many Cardio-Oncology services.

Objectives

To describe how a Cardio-Oncology service has grown and evolved over a 10 year period in response to the constantly changing oncological landscape.

Methods and results

Prospective, single center, study of cancer patients referred to our service from February 2011 to December 2021. 1499 patients were referred to the service. Mean age was 60 years (SD: 15) and 60% were female. CV risk factors including hypertension (32%), dyslipidaemia (12%) and diabetes (6%) were common.

The most frequent primary tumour location was breast (427 patients, 28%), followed by haematological (151, 10%) and gastrointestinal tract (114, 8%). The average number of referrals per month increased 6 fold from 2011, from 3.3 patients per month to 21 patients in 2021. In the last 5 years there was a 10 fold increase in the number of outpatient consultations from 189 consultations in 2016 to 1988 consultations in 2021.

The most frequent reason for referral was pre-treatment assessment (39%), followed by cancer therapy related cardiac dysfunction (CTRCD) (33%) and other acute cancer therapy related CV diseases (CTR-CVDs) (22%). From 2011 to 2017 CTRCD was the main CTR-CVD due to anthracycline and trastuzumab. This ratio changed in 2018 when other CTR-CVDs became the most frequent referral reason following pre-treatment assessment. Patients referred to our service were or had been, mostly under medical therapy alone or in combination with surgery or radiotherapy (1058 patients, 70%), anthracyclines being the predominant treatment (435 patients, 40%). Targeted therapies and immune check point inhibitors became more popular in the last two years (2020–2021). A multivariable logistic regression model was built to assess the relation between the medical treatment and the prevalence of CTRCD vs other CTR-CVDs. Anthracyclines and HER2 therapy are independently associated with a higher prevalence of CTRCD while tyrosine kinase inhibitors and immune checkpoint inhibitors increase the risk of other CTR-CVDs e.g. hypertension, arrhythmias and myocarditis.

Conclusions

Cardio-Oncology has rapidly evolved from its origin as a subspecialty of heart failure medicine, to a diverse medical specialty that encompasses many different domains of cardiology. Future cardio-oncology services should reflect this and be dynamic, collaborating with cardiac sub-specialities as necessary. Provision of cardio-oncology services requires a considerable knowledge and understanding of the ever growing and changing oncology therapies.

Funding Acknowledgement

Type of funding sources: None.