Insights into cardiovascular side-effects of modern anticancer therapeutics

PURPOSE OF REVIEW: Modern anticancer therapeutics can be associated with significant cardiovascular side-effects. Detection, risk assessment, and treatment of these unwanted effects are an important task for treating physicians. The purpose of this review is to focus on approved novel cancer therapeutics and discuss the most important cardiovascular side-effects, prognosis, and potential treatment. We will contrast these effects to those of conventional cardiotoxic chemotherapeutics. RECENT FINDINGS: Modern anticancer therapeutics can cause cardiovascular ischemia, arrhythmias, cardiac dysfunction, heart failure, and arterial hypertension. Anti-HER2 drugs, or more specifically trastuzumab, can induce cardiac dysfunction and heart failure. Newer data show that these effects occur predominantly during treatment and patients who experience the side-effects often have a good cardiovascular prognosis. Antiangiogenic agents can induce arterial hypertension, arterial and venous thromboembolism, and less frequently QTc prolongation. Recent findings indicate that a high rate of patients treated with antivascular endothelial growth factor drugs develop arterial hypertension and may experience related complications. Preventive strategies or optimal treatment have been tested but controlled studies are missing. SUMMARY: Cardiovascular side-effects of modern anticancer drugs can be a serious problem and need careful attention, prevention, or treatment.