A new scientific statement from the American Heart Association focuses on equity in cardio-oncology care and research.
A “growing body of evidence” suggests that women and people from underrepresented patient groups experience disproportionately higher cardiovascular effects from new and emerging anticancer therapies, the writing group, led by Daniel Addison, MD, with the Ohio State University, Columbus, pointed out.
For example, women appear to be at higher risk of immune checkpoint inhibitor–related toxicities, whereas Black patients with cancer face up to a threefold higher risk of cardiotoxicity with anticancer therapies.
With reduced screening and delayed preventive measures, Hispanic patients have more complex heart disease, cancer is diagnosed at later stages, and they receive more cardiotoxic regimens because of a lack of eligibility for novel treatments. Ultimately, this contributes to a higher incidence of treatment complications, cardiac dysfunction, and adverse patient outcomes for this patient group, they write.
Although no studies have specifically addressed cardio-oncology disparities in the LGBTQIA+ population, such disparities can be inferred from known cardiovascular disease and oncology disparities, the writing group noted.
These disparities are supported by “disparately high” risk of death after a cancer diagnosis among women and individuals from underrepresented groups, even after accounting for socioeconomic and behavioral patterns, they pointed out.
The scientific statement was published online in Circulation.
Evidence gaps and the path forward
“Despite advances in strategies to limit the risks of cardiovascular events among cancer survivors, relatively limited guidance is available to address the rapidly growing problem of disparate cardiotoxic risks among women and underrepresented patient populations,” the writing group said.
Decentralized and sporadic evaluations have led to a lack of consensus on the definitions, investigations, and potential optimal strategies to address disparate cardiotoxicity with contemporary cancer immunotherapy, as well as biologic and cytotoxic therapies, they noted.
They said caution is needed when interpreting clinical trial data about cardiotoxicity and in generalizing the results because people from diverse racial and ethnic groups have not been well represented in many trials.
The writing group outlined key evidence gaps and future research directions for addressing cardio-oncology disparities, as well as strategies to improve equity in cardio-oncology care and research.
These include the following:
- Identifying specific predictive factors of long-term cardiotoxic risk with targeted and immune-based cancer therapies in women and underrepresented populations.
- Investigating biological mechanisms that may underlie differences in cardiotoxicities between different patient groups.
- Developing personalized cardioprotection strategies that integrate biological, genetic, and social determinant markers.
- Intentionally diversifying clinical trials and identifying optimal strategies to improve representation in cancer clinical trials.
- Determining the role of technology, such as artificial intelligence, in improving cardiotoxicity disparities.
“Conscientiously leveraging technology and designing trials with outcomes related to these issues in practice (considering feasibility and cost) will critically accelerate the field of cardio-oncology in the 21st century. With tangible goals, we can improve health inequities in cardio-oncology,” the writing group said.
The research had no commercial funding. No conflicts of interest were reported.
A version of this article originally appeared on Medscape.com.