Abstract
Cardiotoxicity is a serious and relatively frequent complication in patients treated for cancer.Antitumorous treatment can cause a number of undesirable cardiac side effects, such as arrhythmias, myocardial ischaemia, sudden death and heart failure.Cardiotoxicity can manifest anytime during treatment and anytime after its termination. Late cardiotoxicity of anthracyclines, which can manifest as chronic heart failure more than one year after termination of the treatment, is one of the most serious problems.
In viewof indisputable success of antitumorous treatment recently, the issue of cardiotoxicity becomes more and more relevant. The authors review the most frequent cardiac complications of antitumorous treatment.
They emphasize the cardiotoxicity of anthracyclines and its derivatives, because they represent the greatest risk.Furthermore, they reviewthe cardiotoxity of other cytostatics, immunomodulators, radiotherapy and cardiac complications associated with transplantation of haematopoietic cells.