Usefulness of Integrating Heart Failure Risk Factors Into Impairment of Global Longitudinal Strain to Predict Anthracycline-Related Cardiac Dysfunction

The prediction of cancer therapeutics-related cardiac dysfunction (CTRCD) is an essential aspect of care for individuals who receive potentially cardiotoxic oncologic treatments. Certain clinical risk factors have been described for incident CTRCD, and measurement of left ventricular (LV) longitudinal strain by speckle tracking 2-dimensional echocardiography (2DE) is the best-validated myocardial mechanical imaging assessment to detect subtle changes in LV function during cancer treatment. However, the direct integration of clinical and imaging risk factors to predict CTRCD has not yet been extensively examined. This was a retrospective study of 183 women with breast cancer aged 50.9 ± 10.8 years who received treatment with anthracyclines (doxorubicin dose of 422 ± 69 mg/m 2 , with 41.2% of subjects also receiving trastuzumab) and underwent 2DE at clinically determined intervals. CTRCD was diagnosed when LV ejection fraction dropped ≥10% to a subnormal (