Anthracycline-Induced Cardiothoxicity in Children Cancer Patients: An Imaging Study by Two-Dimensional Global Longitudinal Strain Using Automated Function Imaging Technique

Despite high effectiveness of Anthracycline as a potent antineoplastic agent, its-related cardiothoxicity is the most notorious complication. The purpose of our study was to assess the value of using different methods (LVEF, E, E’, A and Tei index versus global longitudinal strain) for detection of early cardiac changes by measuring them before and one month after the Anthracycline administration in a cross-sectional cohort study.
This cross-sectional study was performed on 22 new diagnosed cancer patients aged 18 years or younger who referred to the children Medical center in Tehran in 2016 as the cases and also 22 age-matched healthy children who referred to the center because of any non-cardiac reasons as the control. All participants were assessed to determine the left ventricular functional indices before and also one month after starting the therapeutic regimen containing Anthracycline.
Among all parameters assessed by echocardiography, only the mitral annular peak systolic velocity (Sm) significantly reduced after administrating Anthracycline compared to before that. Data for patients and the control group showed no statistical significant differences before the therapy as well.
Our findings show that evaluating Sm is most useful for early detection of cardiac changes. This may be due to our limitation of small cohort studies and also the short interval after the drug administration; although this was related to the main goal of our study.