Cardiovascular mortality after radiotherapy for breast cancer

doi:10.1136/bmj.326.7396.983

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Study showed only estimates of use of adjuvant radiotherapy

Ian H Kunkler (i.kunkler@ed.ac.uk), consultant in clinical oncology

Western General Hospital, Edinburgh EH4 2XU
Norfolk and Norwich University Hospital, Colney Centre, Norwich, Norfolk NR4 7UY

EDITOR—The headline on the BMJ's front cover “Cardiovascular mortality after radiotherapy for breast cancer” would lead the reader to suppose that the study described the relation between adjuvant irradiation for breast cancer and cardiac mortality.1 The actual report of a cohort of nearly 90 000 women reported from the Swedish cancer registry with data on laterality of breast cancer and cardiac mortality presents only estimates of the use of adjuvant radiotherapy (30%) from regional Swedish registries in the 1970s and 1980s.

Darby et al are rightly modest in their claims about the increased mortality ratio (left v right) of 1.10 because of the wide confidence intervals for the observed …