Subjects Ninety-nine patients with diffuse large B-cell lymphoma were eligible.
Of those, 3 patients were excluded from the analysis because of poor
image quality (defined as >2 non-visualized segments). A
total of 96 patients, 57 males, ranging in age from 24 to 78 years were
finally included in the statistical analysis. All patients had received
anthracycline-based regimens, and the median cumulative anthracycline
dose was 380 mg/m2 (range, 280-560
mg/m2). Patients were studied a median of 6.1 years
(range, 4.9-7.6 years) after the completion of chemotherapy (Figure 1).
Fifteen patients had a history of hypertension and six had a history of
diabetes, which were well controlled by medication. Twenty-nine patients
had a history of smoking or were current smokers. Of the 18 patients
with CAE, 8 developed arrhythmia (ventricular tachyarrhythmia-2 atrial
fibrillation-6), heart failure-5, subclinical cardiac dysfunctions-3 and
acute myocardial infarctions leading to death-2. No patients required
acute treatment for dehydration or additional intravenous fluids beyond
the standard chemotherapy. None of the patients received other
cardiotoxic therapy, radiation therapy, or targeted therapy.
The comparison of the clinical characteristics of patients with and
those without CAE is presented in Table 1. Patients with and without CAE
had similar age, sex distribution, weights, and cumulative of
doxorubicin.