Be Alert to Heart Health - Cancer Today

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Risk of stroke and heart attack increase after a cancer diagnosis.

By Robin Meadows

Newly diagnosed cancer patients are at increased risk of having a stroke or heart attack, according to a recent study. In the first six months after diagnosis, cancer patients were more than twice as likely to have a stroke or heart attack than patients who did not have cancer.

The study, published in the Aug. 22, 2017, Journal of the American College of Cardiology, compared the risk of stroke and heart attack in 279,719 newly diagnosed cancer patients to that of 279,719 people covered by Medicare who did not have cancer. The cancer patients had been diagnosed with bladder, breast, colorectal, gastric, lung, pancreatic or prostate cancer or non-Hodgkin lymphoma. Collectively, these eight cancers account for about 64 percent of all cancer diagnoses in the U.S.

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