J Exp Clin Canc Res
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J Exp Clin Canc Res · Oct 2012
Role of NT-proBNP in detection of myocardial damage in childhood leukemia survivors treated with and without anthracyclines.
Exposure to anthracyclines (ANT) during childhood represents a high risk for development of late cardiotoxicity. Cardiotoxicity is usually detected only when clinical symptoms or progressive cardiac dysfunction have already occurred. Early detection of cardiotoxicity may lead to better therapeutic outcome. N-terminal pro-brain natriuretic peptide (NTproBNP) has been hypothesized to reflect increased left ventricular wall stress before development of echocardiographic abnormalities. The aim of this study was to detect cardiac abnormalities using plasma NTproBNP and echocardiography in asymptomatic childhood leukemia survivors treated with or without cardiotoxic anthracycline therapy. ⋯ Higher levels of NTproBNP detected in childhood leukemia survivors after low anthracycline cumulative doses might reflect an initial stage of ANT cardiotoxicity before the development of echocardiographic abnormalities. Although the current studies support NTproBNP as one of the best available biochemical markers of late anthracycline cardiotoxicity, a possible strategy toward further improvement and combination with other cardiac biomarkers and novel echocardiographic methods should be explored in additional studies.