In this largest clinical trial of β-blockers for prevention of cardiotoxicity under contemporary ANT dosage, the authors noted a 13.5% to 14.5% incidence of cardiotoxicity. In this scenario, carvedilol had no impact on the incidence of early onset of LVEF reduction. However, the use of carvedilol resulted in a significant reduction in troponin levels and diastolic dysfunction. (Carvedilol Effect in Preventing Chemotherapy-Induced Cardiotoxicity [CECCY]; NCT01724450).

No abstract

Cardiotoxicity is associated with the chronic use of doxorubicin leading to cardiomyopathy and heart failure. Identification of cardiotoxicity-specific miRNA biomarkers could provide clinicians with a valuable prognostic tool. The aim of the study was to evaluate circulating levels of miRNAs in breast cancer patients receiving doxorubicin treatment and to correlate with cardiac function. This is an ancillary study from “Carvedilol Effect on Chemotherapy-induced Cardiotoxicity” (CECCY trial), which included 56 female patients (49.9±3.3 years of age) from the placebo arm. Enrolled patients were treated with doxorubicin followed by taxanes. cTnI, LVEF, and miRNAs were measured periodically. Circulating levels of miR-1, -133b, -146a, and -423-5p increased during the treatment whereas miR-208a and -208b were undetectable. cTnI increased from 6.6±0.3 to 46.7±5.5 pg/mL (p<0.001), while overall LVEF tended to decrease from 65.3±0.5 to 63.8±0.9 (p=0.053) over 12 months. Ten patients (17.9%) developed cardiotoxicity showing a decrease in LVEF from 67.2±1.0 to 58.8±2.7 (p=0.005). miR-1 was associated with changes in LVEF (r=-0.531, p<0.001). In a ROC curve analysis miR-1 showed an AUC greater than cTnI to discriminate between patients who did and did not develop cardiotoxicity (AUC = 0.851 and 0.544, p= 0.0016). Our data suggest that circulating miR-1 might be a potential new biomarker of doxorubicin-induced cardiotoxicity in breast cancer patients.

Introduction: Neurocysticercosis (NC), a parasitic disease caused by Taenia solium, may be either asymptomatic or show a mild to severe clinical picture with intracranial hypertension. The most severe form of the disease is caused when viable cysticerci are localised in the ventricles or in subarachnoidal cisterns at the base of the skull. Detection of the secreted metacestode antigen HP10 in cerebrospinal fluid is a sensitive and specific method for the diagnosis of these severe NC cases. Objective and methods: To evaluate the validity of HP10 antigen detection ELISA when applied to serum, using paired serum and cerebrospinal fluid samples from 116 radiologically and clinically characterised NC patients. Results: The HP10 antigen assay exhibited a similarly high sensitivity in identifying severe NC cases from sera (84.8%) and CSF (91.3%). In contrast, HP10 antigen was rarely detected in asymptomatic or mild NC cases (3 of 57). Importantly, the HP10 antigen assay applied to serum showed high specificity (94%) when used in 126 serum samples of non-NC subjects from an endemic community with a confirmed coproparasitological diagnosis of intestinal parasitic infections. Finally, the HP10 assay also proved to be of value in the follow-up of treated patients. Conclusion: This study confirms that detection of the metacestode HP10 antigen in serum is a useful tool for diagnosis and follow-up of patients with severe forms of NC treated with cysticidal drugs.

Continuous values are presented as median (interquartile range) and categorical ones as n (%). COVID-19, coronavirus disease 2019; IQR, interquartile range.