Ten-year atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease risk trajectories among women veteran cancer patients

Abstract

Despite a higher risk of cardiovascular disease (CVD) events in women cancer survivors than their male counterparts, importance of female sex has been underestimated due to under-representation of women in clinical research and male dominant CVD risk models. This study examined ten-year Atherosclerosis Cardiovascular Disease (ASCVD) risk trajectories in women veterans diagnosed with the ten most common cancers—bladder, breast, colorectal, endometrial/uterine/cervix, leukemia, liver, lung and bronchium, Non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma, melanoma, and thyroid cancer—using United States (US) Veterans Affairs (VA) Electronic Health Records data. The study included 78,556 women veterans aged between 30 and 80 years from diverse backgrounds treated at VA hospitals with ≥2 complete outpatient visit records in the VA health care system between January 01, 2007 and December 31, 2017. A steep rise in ASCVD risk score trajectories post-cancer diagnosis was observed among women diagnosed with bladder, breast, liver, lung and thyroid cancer, melanoma, and Non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma, compared to pre-cancer diagnosis periods, as well as significantly elevated pre-cancer ASCVD risk among all patients with cancer, other than thyroid cancer, compared to the no cancer group (p < 0.0001). ASCVD risk monitoring is highly recommended to reduce adverse cardiovascular events for women diagnosed with cancer, survivors, and for women at risk of future cancer incidences.