Why the study?
Radiotherapy for breast cancer leads to fibrotic damage to cardiovascular structures over 10 to 20 years, raising questions regarding the timely diagnosis of post-radiation complications.
Highlights the possibility of early-onset post-radiation constrictive pericarditis (3 years post-exposure) requiring total pericardiectomy, contrasting with the typical 10-20 year latency.
Answers are grounded in this paper and cite their sources.
May warrant considering constriction in unexplained HF well before typical post-radiation latency; leaves open whether classic 10–20-year assumptions need revision.
Radiotherapy is one of the key stages in the treatment of breast cancer. This approach contributes to stable clinical remission of disease. At the same time, irradiation leads to fibrotic damage to all structures of the heart, thoracic aorta and lungs over the next 10—20 years after the first exposure. This fact raises the question of timely diagnosis of various complications after radiotherapy. We present a 51-year-old patient after successful total pericardiectomy and early manifestations of severe heart failure due to post-radiation constrictive pericarditis. The last one occurred after 3 years and 23 courses of high-dose radiotherapy for left-sided breast cancer.
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Frolova et al. (2024) studied this question.
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