BACKGROUND Cardiac disease (CD) is one of the major side effects of childhood cancer therapy, but until now little has been known about the relationship between the heart radiation dose (HRD) received during childhood and the risk of CD. METHODS AND RESULTS The cohort comprised 3162 5-year survivors of childhood cancer. Chemotherapy information was collected and HRD was estimated. There were ...

BACKGROUND Anthracycline drugs for cancer therapy often cause functional myocardial impairment even in relatively low doses. We investigated the left ventricular function in asymptomatic anthracycline-treated children by automatic border detection (ABD) to assess its clinical usefulness for unmasking latent anthracycline-induced myocardial damage. METHODS AND RESULTS Thirty-four children (0.7...

Antitumor anthracyclines such as doxorubicin and epirubicin are known to cause cardiotoxicity that correlates with anthracycline accumulation in the heart. The anthracycline amrubicin [(7S,9S)-9-acetyl-9-amino-7-[(2-deoxy-β-d-erythro-pentopyranosyl)oxy]-7,8,9,10-tetrahydro-6,11-dihydroxy-5,12-napthacenedione hydrochloride] has not shown cardiotoxicity in laboratory animals or patients in approv...

BACKGROUND To study the longitudinal variations of plasma B-type natriuretic peptide (BNP) with reference to left ventricular ejection fraction (LVEF) during and after chemotherapy with cardiotoxic drugs. PATIENTS AND METHODS We prospectively measured plasma BNP using an immunoradiometric assay in 12 anthracycline-treated breast cancer patients monitored for a mean time of 880+/-293 days (pil...

The recently developed anthracycline 4'-epiadriamycin, an anti-cancer drug with improved activity, differs from adriamycin by inversion of the stereochemistry at the 4'-position. We have cocrystallized 4'-epiadriamycin with the DNA hexamer d(CGATCG) and solved the structure to 1.5 A resolution using x-ray crystallography. One drug molecule binds at each d(CG) step of the hexamer duplex. The ant...

BACKGROUND The role of chemotherapy in the treatment of metastatic male breast cancer patients remains unknown, and the only available evidence stem from small, retrospective series evaluating outdated drugs and/or regimens. METHODS In this retrospective study we evaluated the activity of polychemotherapy, consisting of three-drug (anthracycline-containing and anthracycline-free) regimens, as...

Cardiotoxicity of anthracycline chemotherapy drugs is one the main interdisciplinary problems in research area cardio-oncology. As known, high antitumor efficacy antibiotics significantly leveled by development disabling and lethal heart lesions. However, pathogenesis toxic disease, as well diagnostic criteria markers anthracycline-induced cardiomyopathy are not fully understood. The article pr...

PURPOSE The present study was undertaken to evaluate the effects of adjuvant anthracycline-based chemotherapy on thiobarbituric acid reactive substances (TBARS) and superoxide dismutase (SOD) levels in patients with breast cancer who had undergone surgery. METHODS Body mass index (BMI), serum lipids (total cholesterol, LDL cholesterol, HDL cholesterol and triglycerides), serum TBARS and SOD v...

OBJECTIVES To examine left ventricular (LV) diastolic function in patients previously treated with anthracycline drugs for childhood malignancy. To consider clinical relevance, relations with systolic dysfunction, and the pathophysiology of anthracycline cardiotoxicity. DESIGN Cross sectional echocardiographic study of LV function. SETTING Supraregional centre for paediatric cardiology, pri...