Background and objective: Radiation therapy (RT) is part of standard adjuvant treatment for breast cancer. Earlier studies demonstrated increased cardiac morbidity and mortality from this. Coronary Calcium scanning utilizing Multidetector Computed Tomography (MDCT) can detect early atherosclerosis in coronary arteries by identifying the amount of calcifications. In our study we employed these tools to detect occult atherosclerosis at least 5 years following breast RT.
Methods: We evaluated 20 asymptomatic patients, <60 years old, treated with RT at least 5 years prior to enrollment. Nine received RT to the left and 11 to the right chest wall. The median interval between RT and calcium scan was 8 years. All patients were treated with external beam RT using tangential technique. All patients underwent MDCT to compute volumetric and Agatston calcium scores of the coronary arteries and the aorta.
Results: Eleven patients had RT to the right chest wall, and eight had a calcium score of 0, while two had minimally elevated scores and one patient had a significantly elevated score. Meanwhile nine patients had RT to the left chest wall, and seven had a calcium score of 0. None had significantly elevated scores. In the aorta, 11 of 20 patients had a score of 0, while 8 of 20 had minimally elevated scores.
Conclusion: In contrast to studies demonstrating increased cardiovascular morbidity, our pilot study did not detect significant occult atherosclerosis using MDCT of the coronaries and aorta of patients assessed five or more years following radiation for treatment of breast cancer.
Keywords: DCIS; adjuvant radiation; agatston; atherosclerosis; breast cancer; calcium scanning; calcium volume score; coronary disease.