Reducing heart disease: important in cancer nursing?

Published: 05 July 2011

A recent study has found that the majority of women with breast cancer died from other causes, with cardiovascular disease the leading cause of death

Breast cancer is the single largest form of the disease in the UK, accounting for more than 40,000 new cases each year. However, survival rates have increased through early detection, advances in a diagnosis and improvements in treatment and supportive care.

A recent study, reported in BioMedCentral’s open access publication Breast Cancer Research, has found that the majority of women with breast cancer died from other causes, with cardiovascular disease the leading cause of death.

For the full paper see: Patnaik, JL et al. (2011) Cardiovascular disease competes with breast cancer as the leading cause of death for older females diagnosed with breast cancer: a retrospective cohort study in Breast Cancer Research 2011, 13:R64doi:10.1186/bcr2901.