Anthracycline Cardiotoxicity Research Paper

Maria Volkova1 and Raymond Russell, III*,1,2 Anthracycline Cardiotoxicity: Prevalence, Pathogenesis and Treatment Curr Cardiol Rev. 2011 Nov; 7(4): 214–220.Published online 2011 Nov. doi: 10.2174/157340311799960645
The family of anthracycline drugs originated in the 1950’s with the identification of daunorubicin from the soil bacterium Streptomyces peucetius . In the 1960’s, daunorubicin was found to be quite effective in treating leukemias and lymphomas. Also in the 1960’s, a derivative of daunorubicin, 14-hydroxydaunomycin or Adriamycin (later to be renamed doxorubicin), was identified and shown to be a more effective antitumor agent. Since these initial investigations of this class of antitumor agents, anthracycline chemotherapeutic agents have been employed in the treatment of a wide variety of solid organ tumors and hematologic malignancies, including leukemia, lymphoma, breast cancer, lung cancer, multiple myeloma and sarcoma.
Although doxorubicin has become one of the most effective chemotherapeutic agents, it was noted early on that its use was complicated by the development of heart failure [5, 6]. In a retrospective analysis of over 4000 patients receiving doxorubicin
This study went on to demonstrate that one of the greatest determinants of the development of heart failure is the cumulative dose of doxorubicin, with a sharp increase in the prevalence of heart failure occurring at a cumulative dose of 550 mg/m2. The cumulative dose of anthracycline is a clinical factor that continues through today to predict the development of heart failure. In addition, the use of smaller, divided doses decreased the likelihood of developing heart