Abstract
The effect of anthracyclines on cardiac function was assessed by left ventricular ejection fraction (LVEF), peak ejection rate (PER) and peak filling rate (PFR), which were measured by using radionuclide angiocardiography.
One hundred radionuclide angiocardiographies were done in 53 patients with malignancies who were treated with one of the follwing anthracyclines, adriamycin (ADM), daunomycin (DM), aclacynomycin A (ACM), 4'-O-tetrahydropranyladriamycin (THP-ADM).
In patients getting either ADM or DM, there was significant correlation between the changes of 3 parameters (LVEF, PER and PFR) and the cumulative dose each drug, which suggested that these parameters seemed to be useful for the early detection of cardiac dysfunction induced by these drugs. And it was estimated that the limiting total dose of ADM and DM was 360∼600 mg/m2, and 1,100∼1,300 mg/m2, respectively.
In patients getting ACM, there was no significant correlation between the changes of these parameters and the cumulative dose of this drug (maximum dose: 1,552 mg/m2), which suggested that the cardiotoxic effect of ACM was quite low.
Among 3 parameters, only LVEF was correlated significantly with the cumulative dose in patients getting THP-ADM. It was estimated that the limiting total dose of THP-ADM was 900 mg/m2, which suggested that THP-ADM had apparently lower cardiotoxic effect than ADM.
