Clonal Hematopoiesis Associated With Heart Toxicity in Cancer Survivors

While prior research has shown that clonal hematopoiesis can be associated with blood cancers such as chronic myeloid leukemia or myelodysplastic syndrome, more recent data shows that it can also be a driver for cardiovascular disease in patients with cancer. The association between clonal hematopoiesis and death due to heart complications was particularly strong among patients with kidney cancer, explained Dr. Maxine Sun.

Sun, who is a scientist who focuses on genitourinary oncology at the Dana-Farber Cancer Center in Boston, recently presented her research on clonal hematopoiesis and cancer at the 2023 Kidney Cancer Research Summit.

“I found that in patients with various types of cancers, that it was associated ultimately with death from cardiovascular disease — mortality, or coronary artery cause-related mortality in patients diagnosed with cancer, and that this effect was particularly relevant for patients diagnosed with kidney cancer,” she explained in an interview at the conference.

Of note, prior research has shown that survivors of childhood cancer also tended to have a higher rate of clonal hematopoiesis than individuals without a cancer history.

READ MORE: Childhood Cancer Survivors Have Higher Rate of Aging-Related Mutations Than the General Population

Transcription

My work relates to clonal hematopoiesis. I don't know if you've ever heard of that term before. It's a very interesting topic nowadays. (Clonal hematopoiesis is) basically when a mutation gains a survival advantage over other normal hematopoietic stem cells, and so it expands and becomes like a clonal expansion.

And so recently, in the last five or six years, clonal hematopoiesis has found to be a link with cardiovascular disease. So previously, it was an established driver for blood cancer. And very recently, so they found that it was associated with cardiovascular disease. And what's interesting in relation to the work that I did, was that within a UK Biobank, I looked at clonal hematopoiesis, and I found that in patients with various types of cancers, that it was associated ultimately with death from cardiovascular disease — mortality, or coronary artery cause-related mortality in patients diagnosed with cancer, and that this effect was particularly relevant for patients diagnosed with kidney cancer.

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