Combined research on cancer patients' associated heart problems

Local Western medicine doctors are teaming up with traditional Chinese medicine experts to launch joint research and enhance cooperation on heart damage during immunotherapy for cancer patients, experts announced at a training course launched by Zhongshan Hospital.

The course attracted over 100 experts on oncology, caridology, and respiration from all over the nation.

Meanwhile, the nation's first clinical guidance book on the issue was also released on the course in Shanghai on Thursday to provide cancer patients with more comprehensive and precise treatment.

Cancer has become a serious public health issue in China, which reported 4.82 million new cases in 2022, which means 9.2 people are diagnosed with cancer every minute.

"With medical development, new cancer therapies and medication appear quickly," said Dr Cheng Leilei from Zhongshan Hospital's cardio-oncology team. "Immunotherapy featured by Immune Checkpoint Inhibitor therapy has shown encouraging results, but cardiotoxicities caused by the therapy also alert doctors, because such therapy can cause ICI-related myocarditis."

Though the incidence of myocarditis in patients treated with ICI therapy is only 0.06 to 3.8 percent, it has a high mortality rate of 40 to 66 percent.

"For certain types of breast cancer, death caused by heart problems is higher than by cancer itself. So how to balance cancer treatment while reducing the adverse cardiovascular effects is extremely important for cancer patients' treatment outcome and their overall survival and life quality," said Cheng, whose hospital introduced East China's first outpatient clinic offering combined treatment to patients with both cancer and heart problems and launched the training program to provide education and share experiences with experts all over the nation.

"This time, we are inviting local TCM experts to work together to look for more and better measures to help patients," she added.

Dr Fang Min, president of Shuguang Hospital affiliated to the Shanghai University of Traditional Chinese Medicine said ICI-related myocarditis is complicated and needs cooperation between multiple departments to ensure a best treatment plan for patients.

"TCM has its special advantages on overall management, toxicity reduction and efficacy enhancing, immune microcirculation renovation, and cytokine storm controlling," Fang said. "Combining TCM into clinical research and practice can give new thoughts for ICI-related myocarditis treatment."