Clinical and echocardiographic characteristics of early cardiotoxicity in patients with breast cancer treated with chemotherapy

Abstract

Introduction: Cardiovascular complications are the main cause of mortality in cancer survivors. Objectives: To identify the clinical and echocardiographic characteristics of cardiotoxicity in patients with breast cancer treated with chemotherapy. Methods: Cross-sectional study in 451 patients with breast cancer. Each patient underwent an interrogation, physical examination, hemochemistry, electrocardiogram, and echocardiogram (the latter, before chemotherapy, at 3, 6, and 12 months. Frequencies were obtained for qualitative variables and proportions were compared using the z statistic; for the quantitative variables, the mean, standard deviation, minimum and maximum value were estimated. Mean differences were calculated with Student's t-test, after determining the distribution. For all analyses, the level of significance was set at p< 0.05. Results: The frequency of cardiotoxicity was 15.9 %. The mean age was 60.1 ± 12.6 years. Arterial hypertension was identified in 60.1 % of the patients, left ventricular hypertrophy in 48.6 %, and hypertensive heart disease in 35.7 %. Left ventricular ejection fraction and left atrial diameter showed greater differences (p= 0.000 in both cases) after treatment. Conclusions: The characteristics of patients with cardiotoxicity are: age over 60 years, smoking, reduced glomerular filtration rate, hypertensive heart disease, prolongation of the Q-Tc interval, increased diameter of the left atrium, diastolic dysfunction and depression left ventricular ejection fraction.

Keywords

• cáncer
• cardiotoxicidad
• quimioterapia
• cardio-oncología.