Finding
What was considered to be a ‘‘normal’’ cardiovascular (CV) event must now be seen in a different light, with greater concern, as this may be the critical problem that the patient, and physician, whether internist, cardiologist or oncologist,
Paper
Bringing new players into the field: onco-pharmacovigilance in the era of cardio-oncology
Abstract
The world is growing older, not only in terms of a time-line but also in terms of population demographics: the elderly are becoming an increasingly large segment of the population in the vast majority of western countries. This is due to numerous factors: low birth rates, fewer deaths due to infectious diseases, and an increasing ability of medicine to cope with the chronic degenerative pathologies: cardiovascular disease and cancer. Clinically the reality is changing, in that we are often seeing more patients with both cardiovascular and oncologic disease. The cardiologic complications of anti-neoplastic therapy are moving into the limelight as cancer patient survival increases [1]. This has drawn the attention of internal medicine, as indicated in the article by Raschi and De Ponti [2] in this issue of IAEM. Originally, the cardiotoxicity associated with classic chemotherapies was just one of the numerous severe complications to these approaches, and survival of oncologic patients was low, so that cardiac complications were not a major concern. The advent of targeted therapies in cancer, together with classic approaches, has increased survival of cancer patients, but has also broadened the problems of cardiotoxicity. What was considered to be a ‘‘normal’’ cardiovascular (CV) event must now be seen in a different light, with greater concern, as this may be the critical problem that the patient, and physician, whether internist, cardiologist or oncologist,
Authors
A. Albini, F. Donatelli, D. Noonan
Journal
Internal and Emergency Medicine