Why the study?
Despite new radiation therapy techniques limiting the exposed area, cardiac damage remains an important concern in women with breast cancer receiving thoracic radiation therapy.
This review summarizes the pathophysiology, diagnosis, and management of postradiotherapy cardiotoxicity in women with breast cancer.
Provides synthesized guidance on postradiotherapy cardiotoxicity; leaves open the need for prospective trials to optimize screening and prevention.
Cancer and cardiovascular disease are the two main causes of death worldwide in both men and women. In the past decades, survival rate in cancer patients has substantially improved due to new treatments and developments in radiation therapy (RT). In women, breast cancer (BC) is the leading cause of cancer death and thoracic RT is a main component of the treatment in many cases. Nevertheless, despite new techniques that limit the area receiving RT, cardiac damage is still an important concern in BC patients. In this review, the following aspects will be addressed: pathophysiology of postradiotherapy heart damage in women with BC; mechanisms, diagnosis and prevention/management of heart damage; and future areas of potential research for radiotherapy injury in women.
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Peix et al. (2023) studied this question.
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