Exploration of Cardiology
Assessment of cardiovascular disease-associated mortality risk among early-stage breast cancer patients
By Ndagijimana Djuma, Emmanuel Delali Kofi Fiagbey, Etima Jeremiah Iweh and 3 others.
Abstract
Aim
Cardiovascular disease (CVD) is the most common non-cancer cause of death in breast cancer (BC) survivors, yet the age-specific point at which CVD deaths overtake BC deaths, and its early indicators, remain unknown. This study aimed to establish this time point and identify factors associated with cardiovascular-specific mortality (CSM) in early-stage BC.
Methods
We analyzed 255,731 women diagnosed with stage I–III BC (2010–2020) from the Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results (SEER) 17 registries. CSM was compared with the general United States (US) female population using standardized mortality ratio (SMR) via Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Wide-ranging Online Data for Epidemiologic Research (CDC WONDER). Competing-risk methods estimated cumulative incidence, and Fine-Gray regression identified factors associated with CSM after adjustment for measured covariates.