Exercise echoicardiography reflects cumulative anthracycline exposure during childhood

Abstract

Background. Low and moderate dose anthracycline therapy used in current treatment protocols, may be associated with subclinical abnormalities of cardiac function and late presentation with congestive heart failure. Exercise echocardiography is a useful and noninvasive means of uncovering latent cardiac dysfunction in other settings. The purpose of this study is to determine whether exercise echocardiography has the potential to detect subclinical abnormalities of cardiac function in children treated with anthracyclines. Procedure. One hundred ten children previously treated with anthracycline, in remission and off treatment for >12 months were assessed, together with 31 control subjects. Eac..