On Counterfactual Explanations of Cardiovascular Risk in Adolescent and Young Adult Breast Cancer Survivors

In the last decades, the growing population of cancer survivors has shifted researchers' focus from primary toward tertiary prevention. Particularly, adolescents and young adults (AYAs) breast cancer (BC) survivors may face long-term outcomes as a result of their treatments, among which cardiovascular diseases (CVDs) are the most life-threatening ones. To plan effective follow-up guidelines for preventing and treating these events, it is essential to disentangle the causal role of cancer treatments in these patients. In this work, we aim to extend the current state of BC treatment guidelines by leveraging on the estimate of the risk of CVDs in AYAs who underwent BC treatments, as provided by a causal Bayesian network. In these regards, we provide counterfactual explanations of a causal query, using real-world data, algorithms and methods from the causal inference domain. We show that while ovarian suppression combined with tamoxifen may be a necessary cause for ischemic heart disease, it is not a sufficient one, i.e., this treatment alone is not enough to cause the disease, other factors must also be present. These findings can contribute to support clinicians in the treatment choice and help in refining treatment strategies and follow-up protocols for AYAs, advancing personalised healthcare in oncology.