title: Dobutamine stress echocardiography: a sensitive indicator of diminished myocardial function in asymptomatic doxorubicin-treated long-term survivors of childhood cancer.
abstract: Doxorubicin is an effective anticancer chemotherapeutic agent known to cause acute and chronic cardiomyopathy. To develop a more sensitive echocardiographic screening test for cardiac damage due to doxorubicin, a cohort study was performed using dobutamine infusion to differentiate asymptomatic long-term survivors of childhood cancer treated with doxorubicin from healthy control subjects. Echocardiographic data from the experimental group of 21 patients (mean age 16 +/- 5 years) treated from 1.6 to 14.3 years (median 5.3) before this study with 27 to 532 mg/m2 of doxorubicin (mean 196) were compared with echocardiographic data from 12 normal age-matched control subjects. Graded dobutamine infusions of 0.5, 2.5, 5 and 10 micrograms/kg per min were administered. Echocardiographic Doppler studies were performed before infusion and after 15 min of infusion at each rate. Dobutamine infusion at 10 micrograms/kg per min was discontinued after six studies secondary to a 50% incidence rate of adverse symptoms. The most important findings were that compared with values in control subjects, end-systolic left ventricular posterior wall dimension and percent of left ventricular posterior wall thickening in doxorubicin-treated patients were decreased at baseline study and these findings were more clearly delineated with dobutamine stimulation. End-systolic left ventricular posterior wall dimension at baseline for the doxorubicin-treated group was 11 +/- 1.9 mm versus 13.1 +/- 1.5 mm for control subjects (p less than 0.01). End-systolic left ventricular posterior wall dimension at the 5-micrograms/kg per min dobutamine infusion for the doxorubicin-treated group was 14.1 +/- 2.4 mm versus 19.3 +/- 2.6 mm for control subjects (p less than 0.01).(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)
authors.affiliation: University of Arizona College of Medicine, Tucson 85724.
authors.forename: S E
authors.initials: SE
authors.lastname: Klewer
authors.forename: S J
authors.initials: SJ
authors.lastname: Goldberg
authors.forename: R L
authors.initials: RL
authors.lastname: Donnerstein
authors.forename: R A
authors.initials: RA
authors.lastname: Berg
authors.forename: J J
authors.initials: JJ
authors.lastname: Hutter
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D009202:Cardiomyopathies / Q000139:chemically induced* / Q000000981:diagnostic imaging / Q000453:epidemiology; D015331:Cohort Studies; D004280:Dobutamine; D004317:Doxorubicin / Q000009:adverse effects* / Q000627:therapeutic use; D004452:Echocardiography / Q000379:methods*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D009369:Neoplasms / Q000188:drug therapy*; D012680:Sensitivity and Specificity; D013997:Time Factors
chemical_list: D004280:Dobutamine; D004317:Doxorubicin