VIDEO: Endo-PAT system may help measure cardiovascular risk from breast cancer treatment

SAN ANTONIO — The Endo-PAT2000 assay may be a simple way to measure vascular elasticity in outpatients after treatment with aromatase inhibitors, Douglas Yee, MD, director of the Masonic Cancer Center, professor of medicine and pharmacology at the University of Minnesota, and a HemOnc Today Editorial Board member, told HemOnc Today at the San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium.

These results could then inform clinicians about a patient’s cardiovascular risk from treatment.

A cross-sectional study — designed to evaluate use of the Endo-PAT2000 system (Itamar Medical) — demonstrated that postmenopausal women with breast cancer treated with aromatase inhibitors had reduced endothelial function compared with healthy controls.

Risk for endothelial dysfunction — a predictor of cardiovascular disease — appeared independent of duration of aromatase inhibitor use.

“Of course, we don’t have long-term follow up on cardiovascular risk events, but it is a concern that our complete suppression of estrogen might do something we don’t want, which is change a woman’s cardiovascular risk profile,” Yee said. – by Kristie L. Kahl

Disclosure: Yee reports no relevant financial disclosures.