Abstract Body (Do not enter title and authors here): Background: Cancer and cardiovascular disease (CVD) are the leading causes of death worldwide. Limited evidence is available regarding the relationship between CVD, cardiovascular risk factors (CVRF), and cancer mortality; and how CVRF further modify that relationship.
Methods: The first part included 438 and 2100 CVD patients aged 65+ from NHANES-III and Continuous (1999-2016) datasets, respectively. Competing risk models with subdistribution hazards ratio (aHR) were used to identify risk factors for cancer incidence.
The second part included 44,591 adult individuals from NHANES-Continuous merged with Medicare and National Death Index mortality data until the end of 2018. We included individuals with no history of cancer at baseline. We used competing risk modeling to test the relationship between CVD at baseline and cancer mortality. We also conducted a comprehensive risk factor analysis.
Results: In the first part (Figure), females in NHANES-III had lower cancer risk (aHR 0.39, P=0.001) compared to males. Poor physical activity was associated with increased cancer risk in both datasets (aHR 2.59 in NHANES-III, aHR 1.59 in Continuous). In NHANES-Continuous, age (aHR 1.07, P<0.001) and current smoking (aHR 2.55, P=0.001) showed a significant association with developing cancer. No other factors investigated showed significant associations.
In the second analysis (Table), the included sample size represented 1,738,423,317 individuals (52% females, 67% non-Hispanic Whites, and 9% Hispanics). Competing risk modeling showed a significantly higher risk of cancer mortality in individuals with CVD (aHR 1.37, 95% CI 1.07-1.76, P=0.01) after adjusting for age, sex, and race/ethnicity. Notably, cancer mortality increased with aging (aHR 1.08, 95%CI 1.05-1.11, P<0.0001), current smoking status (aHR 6.78, 95%CI 3.43-13.42, P<0.0001), and obesity (aHR 2.32, 95%CI 1.13-4.79, P=0.02). Finally, a significant interaction (P=0.034) was found where those with CVD and obesity showed higher cancer mortality than those with normal BMI (aHR, 95%CI 1.03-2.91, P=0.04).
Conclusions: Our study highlights the close relationship between cardiovascular health and cancer, including among CVD patients. Our findings suggest that physical activity and obesity may play a significant role in cancer incidence and mortality among the general population and CVD patients. These findings emphasize the need for more proactive approach in the management of shared risk factors for CVD and cancer.