University researchers have developed a new tool that uses artificial intelligence to determine the risk of a secondary heart attack in cancer patients.
Cancer patients who have a heart attack are at increased risk because their cardiovascular systems are weakened. This means you are more likely to experience death, bleeding, or another serious cardiovascular event.
Depending on tumor characteristics, cancer patients may be at increased risk of bleeding, arterial clotting, or both, each requiring different antiplatelet agents as secondary prevention after an acute event.
Until now, doctors lacked standard tools to guide care for this vulnerable group, but an international research team led by the University of Leicester has developed the first risk prediction model specifically designed for cancer patients who have had a heart attack.
The tool, called ONCO-ACS, uses artificial intelligence to combine cancer-related factors with standard clinical data to predict the likelihood of death, major bleeding, or other cardiac events within six months.
The study, just published in The Lancet, analyzed more than 1 million heart attack patients in the UK, Sweden and Switzerland, including more than 47,000 cancer patients.
Dr Florian A. Wenzl, honorary fellow at the University of Leicester and first author of the paper, said: “Cancer patients with heart attacks represent one of the most challenging groups in cardiology, yet have long been neglected in clinical research.
“The results of this study showed that cancer patients had a significantly poorer prognosis: nearly one in three died within six months, approximately one in 14 had a major hemorrhage, and one in six experienced another heart attack, stroke or cardiovascular death.”
“With this new tool, we can now provide physicians with reliable information to customize treatment and balance benefits and harms.”
Similar significant advances in the management of heart disease and cancer have created new opportunities for these conditions to coexist. As a result, cancer and heart attacks will increasingly overlap, and cardiologists and oncologists will be faced with an increasingly complex patient population. We approach this pressing problem from a real-world data perspective. ”
Professor David Adlam, Interventional Cardiologist, Department of Cardiovascular Sciences, University of Leicester, Senior Author
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.
Lead author Professor Thomas F. Ruscher, from the National Heart and Lung Institute, Imperial College London and Royal Brompton Harefield Hospital, said: “By taking both cancer and heart disease into account, ONCO-ACS represents a step towards truly personalized medicine.”
This research was funded by Cancer Research UK and the British Heart Foundation and supported by Health Data Research UK’s Big Data Drivers for Complex Diseases programme.
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