Fig. 3. Observed number of deaths due to primary cancer vs. fatal heart disease.

The y-axis depicts the relative percent of cases from each cause of death. The x-axis depicts the number of years since cancer diagnosis. Each graph represents a patient of the same primary disease site, as indicted by the colors. The colors depict the disease sites as follows: light blue = prostate; dark blue = colon and rectum; pink = breast; white = lung; yellow = bladder; black = melanoma; green = non-Hodgkin lymphoma; orange = kidney; light orange = leukemia; gray = oral cavity and pharynx; coral = endometrial; maroon = myeloma; purple = Hodgkin lymphoma; dark pink = testicular. Grey represents fatal heart disease while all other colors represent death from primary cancer diagnosis. For all sites, the percentage of fatal heart disease cases increases with follow-up time. The largest relative increase in fatal heart disease cases over the follow-up period is seen in endometrial cancer. Myeloma patients are more likely to die from their primary cancer than from heart disease at all time points during the follow-up period. All trend tests for changes in proportion of death from primary cancer versus heart disease are statistically significant (two-sided test; chi-squared value range: 30.9–123,840; P < 0.001). Source data are provided as a Source Data file.