“The aim is to prolong the lives of cancer patients without additional damage” In this interview, Prof Dr Tienush Rassaf, Director of the Angiology and Cardiology Clinic at Essen University Hospital, speaks about the background of the research into immune checkpoint inhibitors (ICIs) and their effect on the heart. As a cardiologist, you diagnose and treat people with various heart conditions. At the same time, you have also been working for several years on cancer therapies based on the use of ICIs. What is the relationship between cancer therapy and heart disease? Rassaf: Cancer patients treated with ICI often have to deal with more or less severe adverse reactions that can
Prof Dr Tienush Rassaf is Director of the Clinic for Angiology and Cardiology at Essen University Hospital. © Essen University Hospital
affect various organs, not infrequently the heart. We want to understand the exact cause of this.
How often do these adverse reactions occur? Rassaf: In the first year of their treatment, up to ten percent of cancer patients exhibit severe immunemediated adverse reactions.
In the 2021 paper published in the European Heart Journal, you and your co-authors were able to show that heart damage can be avoided if tumour necrosis factor-α, or TNF-α, is inhibited beforehand. How did you come to explore this connection? Rassaf: In previous studies, there was evidence of TNF-α involvement in the intestinal tract and experi-
“Up to ten percent of cancer patients exhibit severe immunemediated side effects in the first year of treatment.”
a therapeutic approach with which we can both treat the cancer effectively, with new drugs for example, and exclude the negative sides of the treatment such as adverse reactions and consequential damage. The aim is to prolong the lives of cancer patients without causing additional damage through immunotherapy.
ments that yielded similar results. This is the approach we have taken with hearts over the past four years. Our goal continues to be, first and foremost, to develop
Biomarkers
Do you have other »candidate« drugs in mind besides TNF to prevent damage to the heart or
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