A Comprehensive Overview on Chemotherapy-Induced Cardiotoxicity: Insights into the Underlying Inflammatory and Oxidative Mechanisms.

Abstract

While oncotherapy has made rapid progress in recent years, side effects of anti-cancer drugs and treatments havealso come to the fore. These side effects include cardiotoxicity, which can cause irreversible cardiac damages withlong-term morbidity and mortality. Despite the continuous in-depth research on anti-cancer drugs, an improvedknowledge of the underlying mechanisms of cardiotoxicity are necessary for early detection and management ofcardiac risk.Although most reviews focus on the cardiotoxic effect of a specific individual chemotherapeutic agent, the aim of our review is to provide comprehensive insight into various agents that induced cardiotoxicity and their underlying mechanisms. Characterization of these mechanisms are underpinned by research on animal models and clinical studies. In order to gain insight into these complex mechanisms, we emphasize the role of inflammatory processes and oxidative stress on chemotherapy-induced cardiac changes.A better understanding and identification of the interplay between chemotherapy and inflammatory/oxidativeprocesses hold some promise to prevent or at least mitigate cardiotoxicity-associated morbidity and mortalityamong cancer survivors.