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Can heart failure cause cancer?

Cardiovascular disease and cancer share several risk factors. Patients with heart failure have a higher rate of cancer than healthy control populations. Meijers and colleagues have taken this association a step further to present new evidence suggesting that, beyond simply sharing root causes, heart failure might actually cause cancer.

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Fig. 1: Heart failure stimulates tumour growth by secreting circulating factors.

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Correspondence to A. Mark Richards.

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Richards, A.M. Can heart failure cause cancer?. Nat Rev Cardiol 16, 7–8 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41569-018-0105-x

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