Long term outcome of patients suffering from cancer and Takotsubo syndrome or myocardial infarction.

BACKGROUND: The pathophysiology of takotsubo syndrome (TTS) is unclear so far. There is strong association of the occurrence of TTS and malignant diseases. An association between malignant diseases and myocardial infarction (MI) was found recently and ascribed to common molecular and lifestyle mechanisms.

AIM: To compare the outcome of patients with MI or TTS and malignant diseases in a matched cohort.

METHODS: Patients with TTS or with MI (n = 138 per group) were matched for age and sex and assessed retrospectively and prospectively. Occurrence of malignant diseases and clinical outcome was followed up over 4 years.

RESULTS: At the time of the index event, 8 (5.8%) MI patients and 17 (12.3%) TTS patients were already diagnosed with cancer. During follow up, the rate of patients who developed cancer was significantly higher in the TTS group than in the MI group (log rank P = 0.01). Mortality was higher in the TTS group, but also in the subgroup of TTS patients with cancer (log rank P < 0.05). In the multivariate analysis, male gender, renal impairment and the history of cancer was associated with an increased risk for death.

CONCLUSIONS: Patients with TTS have more often malignant diseases than patients with MI. Cancer patients with TTS have a worse clinical outcome. The underlying mechanism is unclear yet, but the results point at TTS being the syndrome of an extracardiac disease rather than a disease of cardiac origin. Longer and closer follow up of patients with TTS and further studies addressing the mechanism of TTS are needed.