Does Cardiovascular Mortality Overtake Cancer Mortality During Cancer Survivorship?: An English Retrospective Cohort Study.

BACKGROUND

Cancer survivors have a higher risk for developing cardiovascular diseases than the general population.

OBJECTIVES

The aim of this study was to investigate whether cardiovascular mortality overtakes cancer-specific mortality during cancer survivorship and, if so, at what point cardiovascular disease becomes the dominant cause of death.

METHODS

This cohort study used linked English electronic health records, including death registration data. The study population included 104,028 adults ≥40 years of age whose first cancer diagnosis was for 1 of 9 common cancers and who were alive and followed up at least 1 year after diagnosis. Age-stratified mortality rates were estimated from cardiovascular disease or cancer by predicting from Poisson models incorporating categorical age at diagnosis and time since diagnosis. Where cardiovascular disease mortality overtook cancer mortality, the crossover point was estimated using interpolation.

RESULTS

Mortality from cardiovascular causes overtook mortality due to the primary cancer at 2 to 11 years after cancer diagnosis in survivors of all 9 cancer types ≥80 years of age at diagnosis and after 5 to 17 years in survivors of 7 cancer types 60 to 79 years of age at diagnosis. Cardiovascular mortality overtook all cancer mortality for 6 and 2 cancer sites in the ≥80-year and 60- to 79-year age groups, respectively, over a longer time period. Cardiovascular mortality did not overtake cancer mortality during the observation period in patients aged 40 to 59 years, except among survivors of uterine cancer.

CONCLUSIONS

In older survivors of 9 common cancers, cardiovascular mortality becomes dominant over mortality from the primary cancer, though not always over total cancer mortality, as time passes since cancer diagnosis.