Role of Echocardiography in the Assessment of Cancer Therapeutics–Related Cardiac Dysfunction: An Updated State-of-the-Art Review

Luca Longobardo, Scipione Carerj, Concetta Zito, Giuseppe Caracciolo and Bijoy K. Khandheria

Department of Clinical and Experimental Medicine, University of Messina, Italy
Aurora Cardiovascular Services, Aurora Sinai/Aurora St. Luke’s Medical Centers, University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health, USA

^*Correspondance to: Bijoy K. Khandheria 

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Abstract:

In the last years, cardiotoxicity in patients treated with chemotherapy became one of the most urgent issues for cardiologists because cancer has become one of the most common diseases of this century. The evidence of significant cardiac side effects of anticancer drugs and the awareness that an early assessment of cardiac damage can substantially reduce the onset of chemotherapyrelated heart failure motivated several authors to concentrate their efforts in the study of new tools for sensitive and early detection of Cancer Therapeutics–Related Cardiac Dysfunction (CTRCD). Echocardiography is widely considered the criterion standard technique for the assessment of these patients. The aim of this review is to carefully evaluate strengths and weaknesses of the main echocardiographic parameters commonly used for the detection of CTRCD through a detailed examination of the most relevant and recent papers in literature, while at the same time providing a practical approach to evaluate patients with cardiotoxicity.

Keywords:

Cardioncology; Cardiotoxicity; Cancer therapeutics–related cardiac dysfunction; LVEF; 2D speckle tracking strain; Echocardiography

Cite the Article:

Longobardo L, Carerj S, Zito C, Caracciolo G, Khandheria BK. Role of Echocardiography in the Assessment of Cancer Therapeutics–Related Cardiac Dysfunction: An Updated State-of-theArt Review. Clin Oncol. 2016; 1: 1112.