Cardiology Abroad

Mark Haykowsky, ’91 BPE, ’94 MSc, ’98 PhD, professor and Endowed Chair in Aging and Quality of Life, and his team investigated the mechanisms of exercise intolerance in breast cancer survivors as part of his international collaboration with research colleagues from Massachusetts General Hospital. Their work focused on comparing oxygen transport limitations between breast cancer survivors and patients diagnosed with heart failure with preserved ejection fraction (HFpEF).

“We found that breast cancer survivors exhibit reduced exercise cardiac function and impaired muscle oxygen diffusion — physiological traits that closely resemble those seen in HFpEF patients,” Haykowsky says. “These commonalities highlight an important clinical implication: breast cancer survivors may be at increased risk for developing HFpEF, underscoring the need for proactive screening and assessment of cardiovascular risk factors during survivorship care.” Their findings were recently presented at the inaugural European Society of Cardiology Cardio-Oncology Congress in Florence, Italy, by Steve Foulkes, a postdoctoral fellow in Haykowsky’s iCARE lab who received a new investigator award for this research.