Cardiovascular oncology: a new discipline inside internal medicine?

Cardiovascular disease and cancer incidence and prevalence have risen over the past few decades to become the leading causes of death. On the one hand, cancer patients will be treated with cardiotoxic chemotherapies; on the other, cardiovascular patients will receive a new diagnosis of cancer and will have to face treatments that may worsen their disease. Moreover, venous thromboembolism can commonly complicate the natural course of patients with cancer in an apparently spontaneous manner or can be triggered by a clinical event such as surgery, invasive procedures, a course of chemotherapy or radiotherapy and is known to be the second cause of death in these patients who also may need to be treated for pre-existing medical conditions or comorbidities.