A large study of nearly 2 million patients with heart attack has found that many cancer recipients may not be able to save treatment, despite significant benefits.
The international research team, led by Keele Professor Mamele Mamas and the Keele Cardiovascular Research Group, analyzed data from 1.8 million patients who presented with ST-elevated myocardial infarction (STEMI) – a type of attack heart – to examine whether patients who also have cancer benefit as much from receiving a treatment called Percutaneous Coronary Intervention, as those without cancer during the heart attack.
PCI significantly saves the coronary stent procedure, but it is often not given to cancer patients because much of the existing research on the effectiveness of PCI treatments excludes patients. with cancer, and these patients may be at increased risk from complications of procedures such as massive bleeding.
Previous work has shown that patients with cancer have an increased risk of developing a heart attack, especially within the first month of diagnosis where the risk is greatest. This may be because some of the treatments used in patients with cancer increase the risk of heart attack, and patients who develop cancer share many of the known risk factors for increase the risk of heart attack such as smoking, obesity and diabetes.
The current study, published in the European Heart Journal – Acute Cardiovascular Care, looked at patients with a combination of different types of cancer including blood, breast, colon, lung and prostate cancers, and found that these patients were up to 50% less likely to get PCIwhen attacked heart, compared with heart patients without cancer.
Nevertheless, the researchers also found that for those offered the treatment, the benefits were just as good as for non-cancer patients, and Dr. Mamas said this work is strongly support the case for offering PCI treatments to more patients with heart failure with cancer.
This research is important because patients with cancer may not receive life-saving treatment, but nevertheless we have shown that they get as much if not more benefit than patients without cancer. Our future work will focus on long-term outcomes for this population. “
Professor Mamas Mamas, Keele University