Nuclear Imaging for the Assessment of Cardiotoxicity from Chemotherapeutic Agents in Oncologic Disease

In this review, we summarize the major known cardiac toxicities of common chemotherapeutic agents and the role of nuclear cardiac imaging for the surveillance and assessment of cancer therapeutics–related cardiac dysfunction in routine clinical practice. Cardiotoxicity from chemotherapy causes a significant mortality and limits potentially life-saving treatment in cancer patients. Close monitoring of cardiac function during chemotherapy is an accepted method for reducing these adverse effects especially in patients with cancer therapeutics–related cardiac dysfunction. Nuclear imaging is a sensitive, specific, and highly reproducible modality for assessment of cardiac function. Nuclear imaging techniques including equilibrium radio nucleotide angiography, myocardial perfusion imaging, and novel experimental molecular imaging are the various objective tools available in addition to conventional echocardiography and cardiac magnetic resonance imaging in the surveillance, assessment, and follow-up of cancer therapeutics–related cardiac dysfunction.