Genetic biomarker IDs patients at increased risk of heart damage by anthracycline chemo

Female breast cancer patients with a certain genetic biomarker and receiving a type of chemotherapy called an anthracycline have significantly increased risk for congestive heart failure.

Patients being treated for lymphoma or gastric cancer with the same chemotherapy were vulnerable to cardiotoxicity from the treatment.

Patients were classified by cardiovascular (CV) risk factors, including hypertension, diabetes, dyslipidemia and smoking.

Because the majority of those who had cardiologist-adjudicated congestive heart failure (51) were European-American, the researchers limited the genetic association analysis to European-Americans. They identified several SNPs associated with risk of anthracycline-induced congestive heart failure. After looking at the chromosomal location of the SNPs, the researchers chose two of the top SNPs for validation in independent data sets.

One of the two SNPs, was associated with risk of anthracycline-induced congestive heart failure among 2,415 women with breast cancer who received doxorubicin as part of treatment received through enrollment in a clinical trial. It was also associated with low ventricular ejection fraction, which is a sign of heart damage, among 828 women with breast cancer who received doxorubicin as part of treatment through enrollment in another clinical trial.