Doxorubicin treatment resulted in a cardiotoxicity incidence of 9% defined as a decrease in LVEF of more than 10% to less than 50% over a median follow-up of 5.2 years.
Anthracycline chemotherapy is associated with significant dose-dependent cardiotoxicity, highlighting the need for early detection and long-term cardiovascular monitoring in cancer survivors.
Anthracycline chemotherapy maintains a prominent role in treating many forms of cancer. Cardiotoxic side effects limit their dosing and improved cancer outcomes expose the cancer survivor to increased cardiovascular morbidity and mortality. The basic mechanisms of cardiotoxicity may involve direct pathways for reactive oxygen species generation and topoisomerase 2 as well as other indirect pathways. Cardioprotective treatments are few and those that have been examined include renin angiotensin system blockade, beta blockers, or the iron chelator dexrazoxane. New treatments exploiting the ErbB or other novel pro-survival pathways, such as conditioning, are on the cardioprotection horizon. Even in the forthcoming era of targeted cancer therapies, the substantial proportion of today's anthracycline-treated cancer patients may become tomorrow's cardiac patient.
McGowan et al. (2017) conducted a review in cardiotoxicity due to anthracycline chemotherapy. doxorubicin was evaluated on cardiotoxicity incidence. Doxorubicin treatment resulted in a cardiotoxicity incidence of 9% defined as a decrease in LVEF of more than 10% to less than 50% over a median follow-up of 5.2 years.