Pathogenic TTN and LMNA variants were enriched in 17% of breast cancer patients who developed anthracycline cardiomyopathy, aiding early risk stratification.
Do genetic variants predict the development of anthracycline-related cardiomyopathy in early breast cancer patients?
Genetic variants in TTN and LMNA are enriched in breast cancer patients who develop anthracycline-related cardiomyopathy, highlighting the potential for genetic screening to guide personalized cardiac monitoring.
Absolute Event Rate: 0% vs 0%
Abstract BACKGROUND: Anthracycline chemotherapy-related cardiomyopathy (CCM) is a serious adverse event that can occur several years after completion of breast cancer (BC) therapy. Demographic and clinical risk factors have failed to predict which patients will experience CCM. Genetic variants can account for a significant proportion of inter-individual variation. Knowledge of genetic risk variants prior to chemotherapy will be informative for risk stratification and early intervention. The goal of our study is to identify genetic variants that predispose patients to CCM. Methods: We developed a cardiotoxicity registry at Mayo Clinic, Florida that enrolls patients who are to undergo standard of care chemotherapy in the early BC setting. Patients were (and continue to be) enrolled and consented for chart review and DNA sequencing. We sequenced whole exomes of the first 136 patients (anthracycline N=55, anti-HER2 (no anthracycline) N=71, other chemotherapy, N=10), primarily focusing on Titin (TTN) truncating variants, known to be present in ∼25% of patients with primary dilated cardiomyopathy, and previously reported in 7.5% of patients with CCM, followed by exploration of increased burden of rare non-synonymous variants in 60 established genes for primary cardiomyopathy. Filtering of rare non-synonymous variants included minor allele frequency 0.5% (in GnomAD database European, African and Asian ancestries) and CADDv1.7 PHRED score ≥20. Results: 18/55 (33%) patients treated with anthracycline experienced CCM. TTN truncating variants in were identified in 2/18 (11%) CCM patients and absent in 37 patients who did not experience CCM. Both patients with TTN variants had severe HF and required cardiac transplant. We identified a pathogenic variant in LMNA (p.Arg190Gln) in 1/18 (5.5%) patients and the same rare (p.Glu1127Gly) variant in RYR2 occurred in 2/18 (11%) of patients (Table 1). We noted enrichment of rare missense variants in anthracycline CCM patients compared to HER2 treated without anthracycline, CCM, p=0.0001. Conclusions: Pathogenic variants in TTN, LMNA, are enriched in BC patients (17%) who develop anthracycline-related cardiomyopathy. Early genetic screening may improve risk stratification and guide personalized cardiac monitoring to prevent CCM. Further research is needed to clarify the role of additional rare variants like RYR2 and to develop a CCM risk score based in idiopathic CM genes. Incorporating genetic risk assessments into treatment planning has the potential to enhance oncologic outcomes as well as long-term survivorship by preserving cardiac health. Citation Format: P. P. Advani, A. McPherson, J. Reddy, J. Schneider, S. Baheti, T. Nguyen, J. C. Ray, N. Norton. Genomic Insights into Anthracycline Cardiotoxicity: Enhancing Survivorship Care through Early Risk Identification abstract. In: Proceedings of the San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium 2025; 2025 Dec 9-12; San Antonio, TX. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Clin Cancer Res 2026;32(4 Suppl):Abstract nr PS1-01-22.
Advani et al. (Tue,) reported a other. Pathogenic TTN and LMNA variants were enriched in 17% of breast cancer patients who developed anthracycline cardiomyopathy, aiding early risk stratification.