Factors associated with cancer chemotherapy-induced cardiomyopathy: a cumulative case-control study

Objective: To determine the factors associated with the occurrence of cancer chemotherapy-induced cardiomyopathy.

Design: This is a retrospective study.

Setting: Pay and charity patients of Saint Luke’s Medical Center, Quezon City Philippines.

Patients/Participants: All newly diagnosed cancer patients who underwent chemotherapy, 18 years old and above seen from January 2009 to December 2014 were included. Patients who have had cardiomyopathy prior to study period or who have had cardiomyopathy prior to having cancer; pregnant patients and patients who were diagnosed with coronary artery disease by coronary angiogram were excluded.

Main outcome measure: Odds ratio of the different risk factors studied.

Results: Among the risk factors studied (age, sex/gender, body surface area, type of cancer, stage of cancer, left ventricular ejection fraction before chemotherapy and presence or absence of comorbidity), sex/gender is the only significant risk factor associated with cancer chemotherapy-induced cardiomyopathy with an odds ratio of 10.6 (95% CI 3.07, 36.65) with a p value of 0.00, which has high statistical significance. Thus, males are 10.6 times more likely to develop cardiomyopathy compared to females.

Conclusion: Sex/gender is significantly associated with the occurrence of cancer chemotherapy-induced cardiomyopathy. Specifically, males are 10.6 times more likely to develop cardiomyopathy than females.