Preexisting Cardiovascular Risk Factors and Coronary Artery Atherosclerosis in Patients with and without Cancer

Cancer survivors suffer a higher risk of coronary artery atherosclerosis (CAA). Whether cancer patients had increased baseline CAA burden prior to cardiotoxic therapy remains unclear. We conducted a case-control study, and 286 consecutive patients were finally included. Among these patients, 181 had newly diagnosed cancer and 105 had nonmalignant diseases. Cancer was confirmed by biopsy. The severity of CAA was determined by coronary angiography and evaluated using the percentage of stenosis or Gensini scoring (GS). Patients with cancer versus cancer-free controls were older (OR = 1.052, 95% CI: 1.021–1.084, p < 0.001), more commonly male (OR = 0.048, 95% CI: 1.004–2.676, p=0.048), and more severely exposed to smoking (OR = 1.020, 95% CI: 1.007–1.033, p=0.003). Cancer patients were significantly more commonly complicated by ≥90% coronary stenosis than the gender- and age-matched cancer-free controls (9/93 versus 1/93, OR = 4.875, 95% CI: 1.024–23.213, p=0.047). After adjustment for age, gender, hypertension, diabetes, smoking history, blood glucose, and total cholesterol, cancer was significantly associated with high GS (adjusted OR = 2.208, 95% CI: 1.077–4.524, p=0.031). Our study demonstrated that cancer patients had increased CAA burden prior to cardiotoxic therapy. Further study is necessary to investigate the link between CAA and cancer.