AI-driven model enhances treatment decisions for cancer patients after heart attack

Cancer patients who suffer a heart attack face a variety of dangerous risks, which makes clinical treatment particularly challenging. As a result, cancer patients have been systematically excluded from many clinical trials and available risk scores. Until now, physicians lacked standard tools to guide care for this vulnerable group.

International research using population data

An international team led by researchers from the University of Zurich (UZH) has developed the first risk prediction model specifically designed for cancer patients who have had a heart attack. This research lancetanalyzed more than 1 million heart attack patients in the UK, Sweden and Switzerland, including more than 47,000 cancer patients.

Overall, the results indicate a significantly poorer prognosis for cancer patients. Approximately one in three people will die within six months, approximately one in 14 will suffer a major hemorrhage, and one in six will experience another heart attack, stroke or cardiovascular death. “To provide targeted treatment to these patients, clinicians need more precise tools to assess their individual risk profiles,” said lead author Florian A. Wenzl, from the UZH Center for Molecular Cardiology and National Health Service England.

AI contributes to understanding cancer and heart disease

To achieve this goal, researchers developed ONCO-ACS. This new tool uses artificial intelligence to combine cancer-related factors with standard clinical data to predict the likelihood of death, major bleeding, and other cardiac events within six months. Although traditionally considered as separate disease entities, the results of this study highlight the close interaction between cancer and cardiovascular disease. “Depending on tumor characteristics, cancer patients may be at increased risk of bleeding, arterial clotting, or both, each requiring different antiplatelet drugs for secondary prevention after an acute event,” Professor Wenzl points out.

Impact on clinical practice

New tools provide doctors with reliable information to individualize treatment and balance benefits and harms.

ONCO-ACS takes a step towards truly personalized medicine by considering both cancer and heart disease. This helps doctors determine who will benefit from invasive procedures or intensive drug therapy and who is at greater risk of harm. ”

Professor Thomas F. Ruscher, Senior Author, National Heart and Lung Institute, Imperial College London, Royal Brompton Hospital and Harefield Hospital

The researchers hope that the ONCO-ACS score will soon be integrated into clinical practice to support catheter-based therapy and antiplatelet therapy decisions. ONCO-ACS provides a validated approach to implementing clinical practice guidelines. The new tool could also help plan future clinical trials aimed at improving outcomes for cancer patients who have had a heart attack.