INTEGRATIVE APPROACHES TO CARDIO-ONCOLOGY: MANAGING HEART HEALTH IN CANCER PATIENTS

Abstract

Cardiovascular complications are considered one of the chief reasons of morbidity among the cancer patients undergoing treatments that are suspected to be cardiotoxic. This study evaluated the success of the integrative cardio-oncology approaches, which involve the combination of biomarker-based surveillance with both clinical risk stratification and self-report construction as the mixed-methods experimental design. In Breast cancer patients who were receiving various types of cancer treatment, 100 patients received measurement of biomarkers including NT-proBNP, Troponin and ejection fraction, the Framingham risk scores as well as quality-of-life indicators. It revealed that 30 percent of the patients presented with cardiotoxicity symptoms, and increased values of NT-proBNP and reduced ejection fractions were also eminent mostly in patients subjected to combination treatment and those with co-morbidly diabetes and hypertension. Regression models identified age, status of comorbidity, treatment modality, and NT-proBNP as the significant predictors of cardiovascular decline. The qualitative interviews of cardiologists and patients were used to identify such barriers to early detection as disjointed communication and absence of standardised screening procedures. Statistical relationships were supported with regression visuals, heatmaps, trajectory line, scatterplot, and other visual analytics to see how cardiac risks were moving. One of the key clinical implications of quantitative and qualitative insights is that cardio-oncology has to shift towards being proactive and interdisciplinary. By setting the foundation of early intervention, this research will likely enhance the survivorship rate by urging the use of standard cardiac monitoring and risk profiling, which has proven to be of immense worth to oncology treatments.