Radiotherapy linked to fatal heart disease

Women who have radiotherapy for breast cancer also run the risk of developing heart disease that can be fatal, a new study has found.
The risk seems to be highest in women who have radiation on their left side while they are lying face up. Having the radiotherapy on the right side or while lying face down doesn’t appear to carry the same level of risk, researchers from the New York University have found.
They examined the medical history of 48 women who were given radiotherapy for early-stage breast cancer after earlier reports had linked the therapy to developing fatal heart disease. They agreed the correlation exists, but only for those treated on their left side.
(Source: JAMA Internal Medicine, 2013; doi: 10.1001/jamainternmed.2013.11790)

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