Doxorubicin-Induced Cardiac Toxicity

Doxorubicin (Adriamycin) and the related anthracycline antibiotic daunorubicin play a central part in cancer therapy because of their efficacy in the treatment of hematologic cancers (both acute leukemias and lymphomas), as well as carcinomas of the breast, lung, and thyroid and bone and soft-tissue sarcomas.1 Furthermore, these drugs are widely used in both adults and children in treatment regimens aimed at the cure of neoplasms as well as at palliation. The discovery more than 20 years ago that therapy with anthracyclines could produce irreversible and possibly life-threatening cardiac injury has led to limitations on the use of these drugs in . . .