Az onkokardiológia kialakulása

In our days, the worldwide leading cause of mortality is cardiovascular, and the second place is held by cancer diseases. Actually, we achieved a significant breakthrough in cancer treatment through multi-disciplinary cooperation but parallel there were emerging cardiac side effects. Several hundred years earlier all cancer patients were considered uncurable, and they were labelled this way through many centuries. Some people are thinking the same way even in our days. The first therapeutic initiatives were surgical operations aiming to remove cancer tissues. These therapeutic approach flourished in the surgeons’ century by spreading of general anaesthesia. At the end of the 19th century, a new diagnostic and therapeutic approach used the X-ray technique which spread fast throughout the world. In the middle of the 20th century, scientist started to investigate the chemical weapons of warfare and discovered, that these lessened the progression of some cancer types. Thanks to these discoveries, there was introduced the first anti-cancer drug aminoptein that opened the era of chemotherapy. However, after a few years, it was realized that some patients treated by pharmaceuticals of the antraciklin groups developed heart failure. This phenomenon instigated more scientists to investigate heart-related side effects. Later, there were observed similar side effects as developing high blood pressure and ECG anomalies in patients treated with further chemicals such as HER-2 blocking herceptin and multi-kinase inhibitors. These researcher outcomes were more and more noticed in the practical cardiology in patients treated previously by chemotherapy. Finally, in 2016 the European Society of Cardiology issued the first guideline about the side effects of cancer chemotherapy patients, which started the era of on-cardiology. Since 2016, the once-cardiology become a new medical discipline that concerns the prevention of complications, and the recognition and treatment of heart-related side effects. In the same year was founded the Hungarian Onko-cardiology Society which is translating, spreading and exposing the actual guidelines and holds annual conferences for postgraduate training.