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Androgen deprivation therapy induces metabolic syndrome-like effects, increasing cardiovascular risk. It is the medical oncologist's responsibility to perform a baseline CV risk assessment using tools like the STAMP questions and to engage cardiology partners when needed for risk mitigation.
The body has different estrogens: E1 (pro-inflammatory) and E2 (protective). Current breast cancer therapies are blunt instruments, blocking both types. This indiscriminate blocking contributes to negative side effects like cardiometabolic dysfunction, highlighting a need for more targeted future treatments.
A critical gap exists in cancer care where cardiovascular risk factors are often ignored. As cancer treatments improve survival, patients are increasingly dying from preventable heart attacks and strokes, necessitating the specialized field of cardio-oncology.
For patients with significant comorbidities like cardiovascular disease, proactively starting lenvatinib at a reduced dose (e.g., 14mg instead of 20mg) is a practical strategy to mitigate anticipated severe toxicities from the outset.
Generic advice like "diet and exercise" is ineffective for cancer patients. Clinicians should adopt a pharmaceutical model, prescribing specific types and "doses" of diet and exercise based on a patient's unique metabolic profile, treatment, and clinical goals, rather than handing out a generic brochure.
Focusing solely on LDL is a mistake. Even individuals with a genetic mutation leading to lifelong low LDL levels can still have cardiovascular events if they have other unmanaged risk factors like metabolic syndrome, obesity, or diabetes, highlighting the need for a comprehensive approach.
A VA study using real-world data confirms that androgen receptor pathway inhibitors (ARPIs) combined with ADT significantly improve survival in elderly (>75), frail, and high-comorbidity prostate cancer patients. This evidence directly addresses clinician hesitancy to treat these vulnerable populations with standard-of-care combination therapy.
For high-risk biochemically recurrent prostate cancer, intermittent androgen deprivation therapy (ADT) is the standard of care, not continuous therapy. This approach significantly improves quality of life, bone health, and metabolic health while effectively delaying progression to metastatic disease for years. Continuous therapy is vehemently discouraged in this setting.
Erectile dysfunction is a "canary in a coal mine" for cardiovascular health. The same blood vessel issues that cause difficulty with erections often manifest in the heart 3-5 years later, positioning sexual health as a key early indicator of systemic health problems.
A quarter of patients with metastatic prostate cancer die from cardiovascular disease, not their cancer. This statistic mandates that oncologists actively manage patient comorbidities by assembling a specialist team, engaging primary care, and emphasizing lifestyle interventions alongside cancer treatment to improve overall survival.
The IMbark trial demonstrated that an ARPI (enzalutamide), either alone or with ADT, outperformed ADT monotherapy in high-risk patients. This pivotal finding raises the question of whether giving ADT alone in any setting, such as with radiation for localized disease, is now an outdated and inferior approach.