Individuals with cardiovascular disease might have an increased risk of advanced breast cancer, according to a Jan. 2 MD Anderson Cancer Center study.
The study suggests patients with more advanced breast cancer at diagnosis were 10% more likely to have a pre-existing cardiovascular disease. The study does not demonstrate that either condition causes the other, according to the press release.
“(This is) the first study to show this concept of cardiovascular disease leading to more advanced cancers in people,” said Kevin Nead, senior author of the study.
According to the National Cancer Institute, an estimated 611,720 people in the United States died from cancer in 2024, with 42,250 of these estimated deaths being from female breast cancer.
“There are so many people who unfortunately have these diseases that even fairly small relative increased risks, which is what we’re looking at in a paper like this, can translate to a large number of individuals in the population that might be impacted,” said Nead, an assistant professor of epidemiology at MD Anderson.
Nead said they still need to be cautious before taking these results into the clinic.
“We haven’t proven an effect,” Nead said. “We haven’t proven that cardiovascular disease causes cancer or more advanced cancer. So we do need more information.”
This study could lay the foundation for more research into the connection between cardiovascular disease and cancer, Nead said.
“There’s no specific reason that this should be limited to breast cancer,” Nead said. “The next step for us is to build on these results and investigate essentially this very similar question in other, what we describe as, indolent cancers.”
Nead said his team works in a prevention division, which researches cancer prevention and early detection. He says saving lives through prevention should take priority.
“At the end of the day, the priority should be to prevent cancers, and if we can’t do that, try to detect them early,” Nead said. “A better outcome than a cured cancer is not having a cancer in the first place.”