Background Chemotherapeutically induced myocardial injury continues to pose a major problem. The exact mechanism of drug-related cardiomyopathy (DRC) is still poorly understood. An early diagnosis of cardiotoxicity and the ability to predict patients at risk are important for preventing chronic heart failure. The guidelines for noninvasive cardiac imaging to screen for DRC show limitations in e...

Primary cardiac lymphoma is very rare. This disease occurs mainly in immunocompromised patients and rarely in the immunocompetent. With the advent of echocardiogram, computed tomography and magnetic resonance imaging, more cases are being diagnosed ante-mortem although the prognosis still remains poor. These cardiac tumors provide unique diagnostic and therapeutic challenges. We present an inte...

Background. Posttransplant lymphoproliferative disorders (PTLDs) occur after solid organ transplantation. Treatment guidelines include reduction in immunosuppression (RIS), radiation, rituximab, chemotherapy, and immunological agents. We present a rare case of recurrent diffuse large B-cell lymphoma presenting as a PTLD in a heart transplant patient treated with autologous blood stem cell trans...

Median survival of patients with AL amyloidosis with clinically significant cardiac involvement is 5 months when treated with cyclic melphalan and prednisone. We investigated a regimen of continuous oral melphalan as a single agent for patients with cardiac amyloidosis who were unable to tolerate prednisone or more aggressive chemotherapy. Thirty patients with amyloid cardiomyopathy were treate...

The anthracycline doxorubicin (DOX) is a potent and effective antineoplastic antibiotic agent widely used in the treatment of a broad range of forms of cancer. The clinical use of DOX is limited by cardiotoxicity, which increases dose dependently and may lead to dilated cardiomyopathy and clinical manifestations of congestive heart failure up to 10 to 15 years after the cessation of DOX chemoth...

takotsubo or stress-induced cardiomyopathy is a cardiomyopathy in which the patient has a sudden onset, reversible left ventricular systolic dysfunction without any significant coronary artery disease. four women, who were at a mean age of 64 years and suffered from chest pain exacerbated by emotional stress, were admitted as cases of acute coronary syndrome and were completely evaluated throug...

The introduction of all-trans retinoic acid, or ATRA, in 1985, combined with anthracycline-based chemotherapy, has transformed acute promyelocytic leukemia (APL) from a fatal disease to one that is now highly curable. With appropriate contemporary therapy, more than 90% of patients achieve complete remission, and cure rates of approximately 80% and higher response and survival rates can be expe...

Overwhelming data indicate that cancer survivors are at higher risk of cardiovascular diseases because chemotherapy induces cardiotoxicity. Mechanistic explanation of this phenomenon is necessary to advise the clinical practice on the prevention of cardiotoxicity in cancer patients. Here we propose that chemotherapy induces cardiotoxicity by inadvertently interrupting the homeostasis of cardiac...