Lack of Association Between Heart Failure and Incident Cancer.
BACKGROUND
Several recent studies have suggested an increased cancer risk among patients with heart failure (HF). However, these studies are constrained by limited size and follow-up, lack of comprehensive data on other health attributes, and adjudicated cancer outcomes.


OBJECTIVES
This study sought to determine whether HF is associated with cancer incidence and cancer-specific mortality.


METHODS
The study assembled a cohort from the Physicians' Health Studies I and II, 2 randomized controlled trials of aspirin and vitamin supplements conducted from 1982 to 1995 and from 1997 to 2011, respectively, that included annual health evaluations and determination of cancer and HF diagnoses. In the primary analysis, the study excluded participants with cancer or HF at baseline and performed multivariable-adjusted Cox models to determine the relationship between HF and cancer, modeling HF as a time-varying exposure. In a complementary analysis, the study used the landmark method and identified cancer-free participants at 70 years of age, distinguishing between those with and without HF, and likewise performed Cox regression. Sensitivity analyses were performed at 65, 75, and 80 years of age.


RESULTS
Among 28,341 Physicians' Health Study participants, 1,420 developed HF. A total of 7,363 cancers developed during a median follow-up time of 19.9 years (25th to 75th percentile: 11.0 to 26.8 years). HF was not associated with cancer incidence in crude (hazard ratio: 0.92; 95% confidence interval: 0.80 to 1.08) or multivariable-adjusted analysis (hazard ratio: 1.05; 95% confidence interval: 0.86 to 1.29). No association was found between HF and site-specific cancer incidence or cancer-specific mortality after multivariable adjustment. Results were similar when using the landmark method at all landmark ages.


CONCLUSIONS
HF is not associated with an increased risk of cancer among male physicians.
['Selvaraj|Senthil|S|', 'Bhatt|Deepak L|DL|', 'Claggett|Brian|B|', 'Djoussé|Luc|L|', 'Shah|Sanjiv J|SJ|', 'Chen|Jiaying|J|', 'Imran|Tasnim F|TF|', 'Qazi|Saadia|S|', 'Sesso|Howard D|HD|', 'Gaziano|J Michael|JM|', 'Schrag|Deborah|D|']
D000328:Adult D000368:Aged D000369:Aged, 80 and over D000894:Anti-Inflammatory Agents, Non-Steroidal D001241:Aspirin D004305:Dose-Response Relationship, Drug D004359:Drug Therapy, Combination D005260:Female D005500:Follow-Up Studies D005544:Forecasting D006333:Heart Failure D006801:Humans D015994:Incidence D008297:Male D008875:Middle Aged D009369:Neoplasms D011379:Prognosis D000072664:Provitamins D012189:Retrospective Studies D018570:Risk Assessment D012307:Risk Factors D015996:Survival Rate D014481:United States D019207:beta Carotene
incident cancer heart failure malignancy tumor