Researchers at the University of Leicester have developed an innovative artificial intelligence tool that assesses the risk of secondary heart attacks in cancer patients. Those who experience a heart attack often face heightened dangers due to their compromised cardiovascular health, increasing their chances of death, bleeding, or another major cardiovascular incident.
Addressing Unique Challenges in Treatment
Cancer patients exhibit varied risks based on tumor properties, including elevated chances of bleeding, arterial clotting, or both. These factors demand tailored anti-platelet therapies for secondary prevention following an acute event. Previously, physicians lacked a standardized method to guide care for this high-risk population. Now, an international research team, led by experts at the University of Leicester, introduces ONCO-ACS, the first risk prediction model crafted specifically for cancer patients recovering from heart attacks.
ONCO-ACS leverages artificial intelligence to integrate cancer-specific variables with routine clinical information, forecasting the likelihood of death, major bleeding, or recurrent cardiac events within six months. The underlying study, published in The Lancet, examined data from more than one million heart attack patients across England, Sweden, and Switzerland, with over 47,000 individuals diagnosed with cancer.
Revealing Stark Prognoses
Dr. Florian A. Wenzl, an honorary fellow at the University of Leicester and lead author of the study, highlights the oversight in clinical research for these patients. “Cancer patients with heart attacks have long been neglected in clinical research, despite being one of the most challenging groups we see in cardiology,” he states. “Results in this study showed that cancer patients had strikingly poor prognosis: nearly one in three died within six months, while around one in 14 suffered a major bleed and one in six experienced another heart attack, stroke, or cardiovascular death. Now this new tool is able to give doctors reliable information to tailor treatment and balance the benefits and harms.”
Progress in treating both heart disease and cancer has led to greater coexistence of these conditions, presenting cardiologists and oncologists with increasingly intricate cases. The research tackles this growing intersection through analysis of real-world data.
Path to Personalized Care
Professor David Adlam, an interventional cardiologist in the University of Leicester’s Department of Cardiovascular Sciences and senior author, emphasizes the evolving landscape. “Significant advances in the management of heart disease and cancer alike have created new opportunities for these conditions to coexist. As a result, the growing overlap between cancer and heart attacks will confront cardiologists and oncologists with an increasingly complex patient population. We are addressing this pressing issue through a real-world data perspective.”
The ONCO-ACS score aims for swift adoption in clinical settings to inform decisions on catheter interventions and antiplatelet regimens. It offers a validated framework to apply clinical guidelines and supports the design of future trials to enhance outcomes for cancer patients post-heart attack.
Senior author Professor Thomas F. Lüscher from the National Heart and Lung Institute at Imperial College London and the Royal Brompton and Harefield Hospitals views this as a milestone in medicine. “By accounting for both cancer and heart disease, ONCO-ACS marks a step towards truly personalised medicine.”
