New cancer therapy can trigger heart attack or stroke

A new cancer therapy can trigger a heart attack and stroke—and researchers have worked out why it happens.

The therapy, immune checkpoint inhibitors, harnesses the immune system’s responses to bacteria and viruses to attack tumors, but the medication also interferes with the body’s regulation of the largest blood vessels, increasing the risk of a heart attack or stroke.

Researchers from New York University’s Langone Health have discovered the drugs block molecules on cells that act as immune checkpoints to prevent excessive immune activity and inflammation.

But deactivating these immune checkpoints—which weaken the immune system’s defences and allow the drugs to kill tumor cells—also creates damaging levels of inflammation in the heart, brain and stomach.

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