Dear Colleagues,

In the last few decades, along with an increase in longevity, a progressive spread in the prevalence of both cancer and cardiovascular diseases has been observed, especially in the elderly. Both these conditions, together with well-known and potential cardiovascular side effects of different chemotherapeutic regimens, have a negative impact on patients’ quality of life and adversely affect prognosis. Besides chemotherapy-induced cardiotoxicity, there are several other possible interactions between cardiovascular and neoplastic diseases that still need to be elucidated, with modulation of the immune system playing an important role in these conditions. For instance, patients newly diagnosed with cancer may have a pre-existing cardiac disease, and this condition may be challenging and raise issues concerning oncological treatment management. Furthermore, cancer and heart failure share common risk factors that, at least in part, can explain the close association between these conditions.

Therefore, for this special issue of IJMS, we invite authors to contribute original research articles that expand the growing efforts to understand the interactions between oncological and cardiovascular diseases, as well as review articles that describe the current state of the art on these topics. We are particularly interested in articles describing the impact of antineoplastic treatments on the heart, on the cardiovascular system and on the immune modulation, and the molecular and pathophysiological mechanisms that cancer and heart disease may share.

Dr. Carlo G. Tocchetti
Dr. Maria Rosaria Galdiero
Dr. Valentina Mercurio
Dr. Teresa Troiani
Guest Editors

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• cancer
• heart
• cardiotoxicity
• immunology