Protective Effects of Carvedilol against the Adriamycin-induced Cardiotoxicity

The clinical use ofadriamycin,a highly active anticancer drug,is limited by its severe cardiotoxic side effects.Increased oxidative stress and apoptosis have been implicated in the cardiotoxicity of adriamycin. Carvedilol is an adrenergic blocking agent with potent anti-oxidant activity and apoptosis.In this study we investi- gated whether carvediloi has protective effects against adriamycin-induced rat cardiotoxicity and is explored its possible mechanism,the changes of rat cardiac function,the activity of superoxide dismutase and the contents of malondialdehyde in serum as well as myocardial cell apoptosis were detected.Our results suggest that carvedilol relieves adriamycin-induced hemodynamic abnormality mainly by improving cardiac systolic and diastolic function. Our results suggest that carvedilol is potentially protective against adriamycin cardiotoxicity by decreasing free radical release and apoptosis in cardiomyocytes.