Breast Cancer Chemotherapy and Your Heart

Breast cancer is the most commonly diagnosed cancer in women. One in 8 women is diagnosed with breast cancer. Over the past 2 decades, death from breast cancer has decreased. As a result, today there are ≈3 000 000 breast cancer survivors in the United States, a number that will increase in the coming years. Increased breast cancer survivorship has occurred in part as a result of improved breast cancer treatments. Breast cancer treatments include the following: 1. Chemotherapy involves drugs that are intended to kill the cancer cells or stop them from dividing. In many cases, chemotherapy includes a class of chemotherapies called anthracyclines . 2. Surgery involves removal of the breast tumor. How much of the breast is removed depends on the size of the tumor and location of tumor and other factors. 3. Radiation uses high-energy radioactive beams and often accompanies surgery to lower the chance cancer will recur in the breast or nearby lymph nodes. 4. Targeted therapies target specific receptors that are highly expressed on cancer cells. For instance, some breast cancer types have a receptor called HER2. As a result, novel therapies have been developed that target HER2. One such example is trastuzumab (Herceptin). 5. Breast cancer treatments are often used in combination to provide the highest chance for a cure. Although these therapies have increased the survival of cancer patients, some may cause cardiotoxicity or damage to the heart. Cardiotoxicity can occur in various forms and can include damage to the heart muscle itself, the heart arteries, or the heart …