Understanding cardiac events in breast cancer (UCARE): pilot cardio-oncology assessment and surveillance pathway for breast cancer patients

In Ireland, over 3000 patients are diagnosed with breast cancer annually, and 1 in 9 Irish women will be diagnosed with breast cancer in their lifetime. There is evidence that female breast cancer survivors are more likely to die of cardiovascular disease than their age-matched counterparts. Specific services for cancer patients suffering from cancer therapy related cardiovascular toxicity have led to a higher incidence of safe anti-cancer treatment completion. Such services are not widely available in our jurisdiction, and the purpose of this trial is to remedy this situation.

This protocol describes a prospective, single arm, pilot feasibility study implementing a dedicated Cardio-Oncology assessment and surveillance pathway for patients receiving multimodal breast cancer treatment. It incorporates novel biomarker and radiomic surveillance and monitoring approaches for cancer-therapy related cardiac dysfunction into routine care for breast cancer patients undergoing adjuvant systemic chemotherapy.

Declaration of results will via peer reviewed academic journals, and communicated directly to key knowledge users both nationally and internationally. This engagement will be critical to enable to healthcare services and policy sector make informed decisions or valuable changes to clinical practice, expenditure and/or systems development to support specialized Cardio-Oncology clinical pathways. All data is to be made available upon request.

Dedicated cardio-oncology services have been recommended in recent literature to improve patient outcomes. Our protocol describes a feasibility study into the provision of such services for breast cancer.