Doctors often use risk calculators to estimate a person’s chance of having a heart attack or stroke within the next 10 years.
These tools combine information such as age, body weight, smoking, blood pressure, and other health factors to help guide treatment decisions.
A new study suggests these same calculators may also help identify people who have a higher chance of developing several common types of cancer.
Researchers from University College London (UCL) carried out the study, which was published in the European Journal of Cancer. Their findings suggest that existing heart disease risk calculators may have another valuable use without needing to create an entirely new system for patients.
Heart disease and cancer are the two leading causes of death in many countries. Although they are different diseases, they share many of the same risk factors. Smoking, obesity, physical inactivity, unhealthy eating, and increasing age all raise the risk of both conditions.
To investigate this idea, the research team examined four well-known cardiovascular risk calculators. These included QRISK3, which is widely used in the United Kingdom, the Pooled Cohort Equations used in the United States, and SCORE2 and SCORE2-OP, which are commonly used across Europe.
They tested the tools using anonymous health information from the UK Biobank and primary care records. In total, the study included data from more than five million adults aged 40 to 84 who were followed for up to 10 years.
The researchers compared each person’s predicted heart disease risk with whether they later developed cancer. They focused on several common cancers, including bowel, breast, and prostate cancer, as well as cancers of the kidney, throat, stomach, and esophagus.
The results showed that the heart disease calculators predicted the risk of several cancers almost as accurately as specialist cancer prediction tools. For some cancers, the calculators performed as well as, or even better than, they do when predicting heart attacks and strokes.
The researchers found that after age and sex, smoking was one of the strongest factors linked to cancer risk. Blood pressure also played an important role, although the researchers believe this may reflect other unhealthy lifestyle factors that often occur alongside high blood pressure.
In England, QRISK3 is already built into NHS computer systems and is used during NHS Health Checks for adults aged 40 to 74. People found to have a high risk of heart disease may be offered cholesterol-lowering medicines, blood pressure treatment, and advice about healthy living.
The researchers believe these appointments could eventually provide an opportunity to discuss cancer prevention as well. People identified as having a higher cancer risk might benefit from lifestyle advice or future prevention programs before cancer develops.
The study has important strengths because it included millions of people and used well-established health records. However, the calculators do not predict cancer perfectly, and the research does not show that using them will reduce cancer rates. More studies are needed to determine how these predictions should be used in everyday healthcare.
Overall, the findings suggest that one simple health assessment could eventually help estimate the risk of both heart disease and certain cancers. If future research confirms the benefits, doctors may be able to identify more people who could benefit from earlier prevention strategies.
If you care about heart health, please read studies about how vitamin D influences cholesterol levels, and what we know about egg intake and heart disease.
For more health information, please see recent studies about best supplements for heart disease prevention, and wild blueberries can benefit your heart and brain.
Source: University College London.
