European and American researchers are reporting that radiation therapy might increase the risk of heart disease in breast cancer survivors.

The study had excluded patients who were taking powerful chemotherapy drugs known to damage the heart. The researchers found that heart disease risk was elevated even in patients who did not have risk factors such as diabetes and heart disease.
This isn’t an alarmist study, but should be used to estimate radiation risks to the heart and take efforts to reduce that dose," said study co-author Dr. Candace Correa, a radiation oncologist at the H. Lee Moffitt Cancer Center and Research Institute in Tampa, Florida.
The study details appear in the New England Journal of Medicine.
Source-Medindia