Delineation of anthracyclines and herceptin induced cardiotoxicity using contrast enhanced CMR

Background Anthracyclines and Herceptin are well known amongst chemotherapeutic agents to cause cardiotoxicity. Anthracyclines, particularly in combination with, Herceptin are seen in studies to cause cumulative, dose-related, progressive myocardial damage with decrease in left ventricular(LV) ejection fraction (EF) ultimately leading to clinical heart failure, which can be irreversible. There is lack of appropriate guidelines to monitor cardiac function in these patients. We hypothesized that changes in tissue distribution of gadolinium (Gd) and/or myocardial strain identified using (Gd)-enhanced cardiac magnetic resonance (CMR) could help identify early myocardial damage which can lead to systolic dysfunction.