Host Genetics and Risk of Cardiovascular Disease in a Prospective Cohort of Adult Non-Hodgkin Lymphoma Survivors

Treatment of non-Hodgkin lymphoma (NHL) can lead to the development of cardiovascular disease (CVD). In a previous report, we found that the risk of CVD in patients with NHL diagnosed in the recent treatment era (since 2002) was approximately 1% per year after the initial diagnosis of lymphoma. We evaluated the association of 30 candidate single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) in genes associated with anthracycline-induced cardiotoxicity in children (SLC10A2, SLC28A3, ABCC1, ABCB3, CBR3, FMO2, SPG7) and genes associated with venous thromboembolism (VTE) in adults (ABO, F2/CKPA5, F5, F11, KLKB1, SCUBE1, SLC19A, SELP) with the risk of new onset cardiovascular disease in a cohort of NHL patients.

All patients were from the Mayo component of the Molecular Epidemiology Resource (MER) of the University of Iowa/Mayo Clinic Lymphoma SPORE, and were enrolled from 2002–2008. The MER offers enrollment to all consecutive patients with newly diagnosed NHL who are US residents and age >18 years. Clinical data from the time of diagnosis and treatment data are abstracted from medical records using a standard protocol. Patients are prospectively contacted via telephone or in person per protocol every 6 months for the first 3 years from diagnosis and yearly afterwards to assess disease status and development of comorbid conditions. CVD events, including heart failure (HF), myocardial infarction (MI), arrhythmia, pericarditis, and valvular heart disease, occurring after diagnosis were identified during follow-up and validated against medical records. HF was validated with the Cardiovascular Health Study Criteria and/or the Framingham Criteria. MI was validated using case definition standards of coronary heart disease, while arrhythmia, pericarditis, and valvular heart disease were validated using clinical definitions. Genotyping was conducted using a custom Illumina iSelect platform. Cox regression was used to estimate Hazard Ratios (HRs) and 95% confidence intervals (CI) for individual SNPs with time to CVD, with death modeled as a competing risk. Each SNP was modeled with the most prevalent homozygous genotype used as the reference group, and each SNP was modeled as having a log-additive (per minor allele) effect in the regression model. An ordinal test was used to assess the trend, and p<0.05 was considered statistically significant.

There were 805 newly diagnosed NHL patients with no history of CVD at time of lymphoma diagnosis and had genotype data available for analysis. The median age at diagnosis was 61 years (range, 21–93) and 53% were male. The most common subtypes were follicular lymphoma (33%), diffuse large B-cell lymphoma (29%), and marginal zone lymphoma (14%). Anthracycline-based chemotherapy as initial therapy or at re-treatment was used in 51% of the patients and radiation therapy was used in 18%. Median follow-up of all cases was 59 months (range, 1–105). There were 36 incident CVD events (4.5%) and 139 deaths (17%). The most common CVD events were arrhythmia (N=17) and heart failure (N=14). There was no association with any of the anthracycline-induced cardiotoxicity genes and risk of CVD overall or in the subgroup of patients (N=406) who received an anthracycline. Of the venous thromboembolism (VTE) SNPs, rs4253399 in F11 (coagulation factor 11) with a minor allele frequency of 0.39 was associated with risk of CVD (HR=2.14; 95%CI 1.35–3.40; p=0.001). When restricted to anthracycline-treated patients, the HR for rs4253399 became stronger (HR=2.56; 95%CI 1.39–4.72; p=0.003), and an ABOSNP (rs660340) with a minor allele frequency of 0.43 became significant (HR=2.14; 95%CI 1.13–4.04; p=0.02).

This is the first report that genes involved in VTE also predict CVD risk in NHL patients, particularly those treated with anthracycline chemotherapy. However, SNPs from genes previously associated with anthracycline-induced cardiotoxicity were not associated with CVD risk in this cohort, although those SNPs were identified in children and may not apply to adults. Future research will need to validate these findings and identify additional genetic markers that can be incorporated into risk assessment for CVD in this patient population.

No relevant conflicts of interest to declare.