%0 Journal Article
%T Early detection of doxorubicin myocardial injury by ultrasonic tissue characterization in an experimental animal model
%A Minna Moreira Romano
%A Ant£¿nio Pazin-Filho
%A Jo£¿o O¡¯Connel
%A Marcus Sim£¿es
%A Andr¨¦ Schmidt
%A ¨¦rica C Campos
%A Marcos Rossi
%A Benedito Maciel
%J Cardiovascular Ultrasound
%D 2012
%I BioMed Central
%R 10.1186/1476-7120-10-40
%X Cardiotoxicity is one of the most feared complications related to doxorubicin (DXR) prescription in clinical practice, expressed primarily by myocardial focal sclerosis, which can evolve to irreversible ventricular diastolic and systolic dysfunctions.Serial quantification of left ventricle ejection fraction (LVEF) is the standard procedure to identify cardiotoxicity [1], but it is not sensitive enough to detect initial myocardial lesion [2,3]. Information regarding myocardial ultra-structure and composition, including the collagen deposition, can be provided by ultrasonic tissue characterization (UTC), a non-invasive technique that can detect and quantify acoustic properties of myocardial tissue [4,5]. Even though UTC has been used to detect myocardial damage in several myocardial collagen deposition diseases [6-10], its ability to do so in DXR cardiotoxicity is still debated. There is evidence of UTC abnormalities at the end of the DXR infusion [11-13]. In a previous pilot study performed in our laboratory (results yet not published), with rats receiving intraperitoneal DXR infusions, we found that UTC can potentially detect the myocardium texture alterations at the end of treatment with DXR, even in occasions where there was only a slight decrease in LVEF.This study was designed to assess the capability of UTC to detect myocardium injury due to DXR infusion earlier than LVEF, as evaluated using echocardiography in an experimental animal model and with histological quantification of collagen deposition.Sixty adults Wistar male rats (250 to 300g) were sedated and evaluated with echocardiographic examinations at basal situation as previously described [14]. Then, the animals received weekly endovenous DXR infusions of 2mg/Kg DXR up to a cumulative dosage of 16 mg/Kg. The animals were sedated and submitted to echocardiographic evaluations 7¨C15 days after the cumulative dosages of 8, 10, 12, 14, and 16 mg/Kg DXR. The protocol was approved by the Ethical Animal Research
%K Doxorubicin
%K Ultra-sonic tissue characterization
%K Echocardiography
%K Rats
%U http://www.cardiovascularultrasound.com/content/10/1/40