A Population-Based Study of Cardiovascular Disease Mortality in Italian Cancer Patients

SIMPLE SUMMARY: Research suggests that lengthening the prognosis in cancer patients (which is certainly a positive thing) requires greater attention to be paid to the onset of other pathologies. The increase in cardiovascular mortality in cancer patients (due to both exposure to risk factors and the side effects of cytotoxic drugs) requires greater collaboration between oncologists and cardiologists, and the integration of shared follow-up paths. Particular attention to the follow-up of cancer patients can reduce this risk: in the present study, patients presented an excessive risk of cardiovascular mortality only in the first two years from cancer diagnosis. ABSTRACT: The present research describes 25 years of cardiovascular mortality in a cohort of patients in Northern Italy. The study included patients with malignant cancer enrolled in the period of 1996–2019, and describes cardiovascular and cancer mortality in relation to sex, age, year of diagnosis, months of survivorship, tumor site, and standardized mortality ratio (SMR). Out of 67,173 patients, 38,272 deaths (57.7%) were recorded: 4466 from cardiovascular disease (CVD) (6.6%), and 28,579 (42.6%) from cancer. The proportion of CVD death increased from 4.5% in the first two years after diagnosis, to 7.3% after more than 10 years, while the proportion of deaths from cancer decreased from 70.5% to 9.4%. The CVD SMR comparing cancer patients with the general population was 0.87 (95% CI: 0.82–0.92) in 1996–1999, rising to 0.95 (95% CI: 0.84–1.08) in 2015–2019, without differences in terms of sex or age. The risk of dying from CVD was higher compared with the general population (SMR 1.31; 95% CI: 1.24–1.39) only in the first two years after diagnosis. The trend over time underscored that CVD deaths increased in patients with breast, bladder, prostate, and colorectal cancers, and, in the more recent period, for kidney cancer and melanoma patients. Our data confirmed that cardiovascular mortality is an important issue in the modern management of cancer patients, suggesting the need for an extensive interdisciplinary approach.