Funding outcome

The survival rates of women with breast cancer have improved significantly over the last four decades due to advances in early breast cancer diagnosis and subsequent chemotherapy. However, breast cancer survivors have an increased risk of heart disease following chemotherapy. While this increased risk of developing heart disease later in life has largely been attributed to the toxic effects of breast cancer chemotherapies, the effect of the breast cancer itself on the heart prior to cancer treatment has been largely overlooked. Thus, we hypothesize that the breast cancer cells secrete factors that enter our blood stream and find their way to the heart and it is these factors that leads to enlargement of the heart. After this occurs, we further hypothesize that it is these changes in the heart size that increase the sensitivity of the heart to toxicity produced by subsequent chemotherapy. By studying this, our work may identify a new target that can be inhibited by drugs and thus reduce cancer-induced enlargement of the heart and/or help and prevent the development of heart disease later in life. In addition, this work could lead to the development of a test that enables us to identify patients at high risk of heart enlargement and subsequent injury following breast cancer chemotherapies.