Childhood malignancy and cardiotoxicity of anthracyclines

Abstract

Background: Anthracyclines are antitumor agents with broad spectrum activity against many childhood malignancies. An important side effect of these drugs is cardiotoxicity which may happen even years after discontinuation. Our objective was tried to determine the incidence of Anthracycline induced chronic cardiotoxicity and its risk factors in an Iranian cohort. Methods: we carried out a prospective analytic descriptive study at Children's Medical hospital, Tabriz, Iran, from 2009 to 2010. To evaluate cardiotoxicity (early or late onset), echocardiographic investigation was carried out on 80 persons who had received anthracyclines to treat lymphohematopoietic (Acute lymphoblastic Leukemia [ALL] and Lymphoma) malignancy before the echocardiographic examination. All patients were off treatment. Results: Mean age آ± SD was 9.74آ±3.79 years old.66.25% (53) was male and 33.75% (27) was female. M/F ratio was 1.96. 60(75%) had ALL and 20 (25%) had lymphoma. 12.50% (10 cases) had left ventricular systolic dysfunction, 25% (20 cases) had left ventricular diastolic dysfunction, and 27.5% (22 cases) had arrhythmias. Conclusion: In the current study among survivors of childhood cancer, finding show that, incidence of arrhythmias due to Anthracyclines cardiotoxicity was greater than other side effects.