Abstract
Assessment of acute and chronic cardiotoxicity of anthracyclines in 26 patients treated for acute leukemia with biochemical markers (NT-proBNP, cTnT,CK-MB mass) and echocardiography. Our study shows that anthracycline treatment is associated with acute and chronic neurohumoral activation of cardiac dysfunction that is manifested by a significant increase in NT-proBNP.
It seems that NT-proBNP could be useful in the early detection of anthracycline cardiotoxicity. CTnT and CK-MB mass negativity during anthracycline treatment suggests that anthracyclines, even in higher cumulative doses, do not cause detectable acute injury to cardiomyocyte structure.
Further studies using more sensitive markers of cardiac damage will be needed in this context.