Timely Recognition of Cardiovascular Toxicity by Anticancer Agents: A Common Objective of the Pharmacologist, Oncologist and Cardiologist

The added value of the HFA/ICOS score in the prediction of chemotherapy-related cardiac dysfunction in breast cancer

BACKGROUND

The 2022 ESC Guidelines on Cardio-Oncology recommend baseline cardiovascular risk stratification before starting anticancer drugs, using the new risk assessment tools proposed by the Heart Failure Association (HFA) and the International Cardio-Oncology Society (ICOS).Our study aimed to assess the clinical application of HFA/ICOS risk score in breast cancer patients undergoing chemotherapy and its usefulness in predicting the development of chemotherapy-related cardiac dysfunction (CTRCD).

METHODS

A prospective multicentric study enrolled 109 breast cancer patients treated with anthracyclines with or without trastuzumab. A cardiological evaluation, including ECG and echocardiogram at baseline (T0), 3 (T1), 6 (T2), and 12 months (T3) after starting treatment was performed. HFA/ICOS score was assessed in all patients. The population was divided into low, medium, high, and very-high risk.During follow-up, CTRCD and other cardiovascular events have been evaluated.

RESULTS

61 patients were low risk, 37 medium, 9 high, 2 very-high risk criteria. We found a significantly higher incidence of overall cardiotoxicity (CTRCD and other cardiovascular events) in the very-high risk group (100%) compared with the medium (29%) and low risk groups (13%). CTRCD incidence was also significantly higher in the high risk group (55%). CTRCD resulted as being associated with baseline arterial hypertension and baseline HFA/ICOS risk score of high ( p  = 0.006) or very-high ( p  < 0.0001).

CONCLUSION

Our study confirms the HFA/ICOS score's ability to predict cardiovascular toxicity in breast cancer women and the need for close monitoring especially in high and very-high risk patients.

Management of cancer patients at high and very-high risk of cardiotoxicity: Main questions and answers

In recent years, important advances have been made in the field of Cardio-Oncology. The 2022 ESC Guidelines on Cardio-Oncology proposed a baseline cardiovascular risk stratification for cancer patients and preventive strategies in patients at high and very-high risk of cardiotoxicity. Cardiovascular toxic effects of anti-cancer drugs are being extensively studied; surveillance programs have been proposed, based on the baseline cardiovascular risk. On the other hand, there is little data on Cardio-Oncological management of patients at high and very-high cardiovascular risk with previous cardiovascular diseases. For example, little is known about management of cancer patients with heart failure with reduced ejection fraction (HFrEF), patients with a recent myocardial infarction or other cardiovascular diseases; when to resume anti-cancer drugs after a cardiovascular toxic event. Collaboration between Cardiologists and Oncologists and multidisciplinary team evaluations are certainly essential to decide the best therapeutic strategy for cancer patients, to treat cancer while saving the heart. Therefore, in the present review, we attempt to provide a useful guide to clinicians in treating patients with high and very-high risk of cardiotoxicity by enucleating main questions and answering them based on the evidence available as well as expert opinion and our clinical experience.

CMR reveals myocardial damage from cardiotoxic oncologic therapies in breast cancer patients

BACKGROUND

Breast cancer is a common and increasingly treatable disease. However, survivors have a significantly elevated risk of cardiac events afterwards. This study aimed to characterise cardiac changes during cardiotoxic cancer therapy using cardiovascular magnetic resonance (CMR) imaging.

METHODS

This study involved 34 patients with histologically proven breast cancer and planned cardiotoxic therapy. All patients underwent CMR before starting therapy, and 6 and 12 months thereafter. The CMR protocol included volumetric and functional analyses, parametric mapping, and deformation analysis using feature tracking. As the control group, 10 healthy female volunteers were scanned using the same protocol.

RESULTS

With therapy, there was a significant reduction of left ventricular and right ventricular ejection fractions (both p < 0.05) without reaching pathologic values. Left ventricular radial (p = 0.008), circumferential (p = 0.010), and longitudinal strain (p = 0.036) were also reduced at follow-up. In the parametric mapping, there was a significant increase in native T1 time (start: 1037 ± 41 ms vs. 6 months: 1068 ± 51 ms vs. 12 months: 1017 ± 57 ms, p < 0.001) and T2 time (start: 55 ± 4 ms vs. 6 months: 59 ± 3 ms vs. 12 months: 57 ± 3 ms, p = 0.001), with unchanged extracellular volume and relative late gadolinium enhancement. Twelve months after cancer diagnosis, the breast cancer patients exhibited significant impairments in left ventricular global radial (p = 0.001), circumferential (p = 0.001), and longitudinal strain (p = 0.002) and T2 time (p = 0.008) compared to the healthy controls.

DISCUSSION

Breast cancer patients receiving cardiotoxic chemotherapy show persistent deterioration in left ventricular strain values. This is accompanied by inflammatory changes in non-invasive tissue characterisation. Larger studies with longer follow-up periods are needed to identify patients at risk and establish preventive and therapeutic approaches.

Chemotherapy-related cardiac dysfunction: the usefulness of myocardial work indices

AIMS

The role of left ventricular global longitudinal strain (GLS) in the diagnosis of subclinical cardiac damage induced by anticancer drugs is now consolidated. Considering some strain disadvantages such as the dependence on the haemodynamic loading conditions, the aim of our study was to investigate the usefulness of non-invasive myocardial work indices (MWI) derived from pressure-strain analysis, in the early diagnosis of cardiotoxicity.

METHODS AND RESULTS

We enrolled 61 consecutive patients with breast cancer undergoing adjuvant treatment with anthracycline-containing chemotherapy followed by taxane + trastuzumab. Patients underwent a cardiological evaluation with 2D echocardiography including measurement of the left ventricular ejection fraction (LVEF) and other conventional parameters of systolic and diastolic function, GLS and MWI at baseline (T0), 3 months (T1) and 6 months (T2) after starting chemotherapy. At T1 and T2, we did not find a significant reduction in LVEF but we found a significant reduction in GLS and MWI (p value < 0.05). In addition, at T2, 31% of patients developed subclinical cardiac dysfunction defined as a relative decrease ≥ 12% of GLS from baseline. Global work index (GWI), global constructive work (GCW) and global work efficiency (GWE) decreased significantly in both patients with subclinical dysfunction and in those without subclinical dysfunction (p value < 0.05). Patients with subclinical dysfunction at T2 showed lower values of GCW at T0.

CONCLUSION

MWI changed significantly during chemotherapy and appeared to alter precociously compared to GLS. Therefore, a multiparametric approach including left ventricular GLS and MWI measurements should be used in the evaluation of patients undergoing cardiotoxic antineoplastic treatment.

Right ventricle toxicity in cancer treatment: a focused review on cardiac imaging

Background: The right ventricle (RV) remains the 'forgotten chamber' in the clinical assessment of cancer therapy-related cardiac dysfunction (CTRCD). Aim: We aimed to review the role that various cardiac imaging modalities play in RV assessment as part of the integrative management of patients undergoing cancer therapy. Discussion: RV assessment remains challenging by traditional 2D echocardiography. In this review we discuss other parameters such as right atrial strain, and other echocardiographic modalities such as 3D and stress echocardiography. We also elaborate on the specific role that cardiac magnetic resonance imaging and equilibrium radionuclide angiocardiography can play in assessing the RV. Conclusion: Biventricular function should be monitored following chemotherapy for early detection of subclinical CTRCD and possible solitary RV changes.

An integrative review of nonobvious puzzles of cellular and molecular cardiooncology

Oncologic patients are subjected to four major treatment types: surgery, radiotherapy, chemotherapy, and immunotherapy. All nonsurgical forms of cancer management are known to potentially violate the structural and functional integrity of the cardiovascular system. The prevalence and severity of cardiotoxicity and vascular abnormalities led to the emergence of a clinical subdiscipline, called cardiooncology. This relatively new, but rapidly expanding area of knowledge, primarily focuses on clinical observations linking the adverse effects of cancer therapy with deteriorated quality of life of cancer survivors and their increased morbidity and mortality. Cellular and molecular determinants of these relations are far less understood, mainly because of several unsolved paths and contradicting findings in the literature. In this article, we provide a comprehensive view of the cellular and molecular etiology of cardiooncology. We pay particular attention to various intracellular processes that arise in cardiomyocytes, vascular endothelial cells, and smooth muscle cells treated in experimentally-controlled conditions in vitro and in vivo with ionizing radiation and drugs representing diverse modes of anti-cancer activity.

The association between tyrosine kinase inhibitors and fatal arrhythmia in patients with non-small cell lung cancer in Taiwan

Objective

As a standard therapy, tyrosine kinase inhibitors (TKIs) improved survival in patients with non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) and epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) mutation. However, treatment-related cardiotoxicity, particularly arrhythmia, cannot be ignored. With the prevalence of EGFR mutations in Asian populations, the risk of arrhythmia among patients with NSCLC remains unclear.

Methods

Using data from the Taiwanese National Health Insurance Research Database and National Cancer Registry, we identified patients with NSCLC from 2001 to 2014. Using Cox proportional hazards models, we analyzed outcomes of death and arrhythmia, including ventricular arrhythmia (VA), sudden cardiac death (SCD), and atrial fibrillation (AF). The follow-up duration was three years.

Results

In total, 3876 patients with NSCLC treated with TKIs were matched to 3876 patients treated with platinum analogues. After adjusting for age, sex, comorbidities, and anticancer and cardiovascular therapies, patients receiving TKIs had a significantly lower risk of death (adjusted HR: 0.767; CI: 0.729-0.807, p < 0.001) than those receiving platinum analogues. Given that approximately 80% of the studied population reached the endpoint of mortality, we also adjusted for mortality as a competing risk. Notably, we observed significantly increased risks of both VA (adjusted sHR: 2.328; CI: 1.592-3.404, p < 0.001) and SCD (adjusted sHR: 1.316; CI: 1.041-1.663, p = 0.022) among TKI users compared with platinum analogue users. Conversely, the risk of AF was similar between the two groups. In the subgroup analysis, the increasing risk of VA/SCD persisted regardless of sex and most cardiovascular comorbidities.

Conclusions

Collectively, we highlighted a higher risk of VA/SCD in TKI users than in patients receiving platinum analogues. Further research is needed to validate these findings.

Higher Incidence of Cancer Therapy-Related Cardiac Dysfunction in the COVID-19 Era: A Single Cardio-Oncology Center Experience

AIM

COVID-19 pandemic had a big impact on our life, it has revolutionized the practice of cardiology and the organization of hospital and outpatient activities. Thus the aim of our study was to assess the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the development of cancer therapy-related cardiac dysfunction (CTRCD).

METHODS AND RESULTS

A single center retrospective study was carried out evaluating 96 cancer patients treated with anthracyclines and admitted to our Cardio-Oncology unit from June to August 2019 and 60 patients from June to August 2021. The incidence of CTRCD was assessed performing an echocardiogram at the time of the enrollment. We found a significantly higher incidence of CTRCD in the second period compared to first period (13% vs. 2%, p value 0.0058). In addition we found that fewer yearly visits were performed in our Cardio-oncology unit in 2021 compared to 2019 (300 patients/year in 2019 vs. 144 patients/year in the COVID era).

CONCLUSION

COVID-19 pandemic seems to influence the onset of CTRCD in cancer patients by indirectly reducing hospital access of cancer patients and cardiological checks. In addition our data reflect the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic in the late diagnosis of cancer, in the reduction of hospital admissions and regular medical checks, in the increase of comorbidities and cardiovascular complications.

Percutaneous Coronary Intervention in Patients With Gynecological Cancer: Machine Learning-Augmented Propensity Score Mortality and Cost Analysis for 383,760 Patients

Background

Despite the growing number of patients with both coronary artery disease and gynecological cancer, there are no nationally representative studies of mortality and cost effectiveness for percutaneous coronary interventions (PCI) and this cancer type.

Methods

Backward propagation neural network machine learning supported and propensity score adjusted multivariable regression was conducted for the above outcomes in this case-control study of the 2016 National Inpatient Sample (NIS), the United States' largest all-payer hospitalized dataset. Regression models were fully adjusted for age, race, income, geographic region, cancer metastases, mortality risk, and the likelihood of undergoing PCI (and also with length of stay [LOS] for cost). Analyses were also adjusted for the complex survey design to produce nationally representative estimates. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)-based cost effectiveness ratio (CER) analysis was performed.

Results

Of the 30,195,722 hospitalized patients meeting criteria, 1.27% had gynecological cancer of whom 0.02% underwent PCI including 0.04% with metastases. In propensity score adjusted regression among all patients, the interaction of PCI and gynecological cancer (vs. not having PCI) significantly reduced mortality (OR 0.53, 95%CI 0.36–0.77; p = 0.001) while increasing LOS (Beta 1.16 days, 95%CI 0.57–1.75; p &lt; 0.001) and total cost (Beta $31,035.46, 95%CI 26758.86–35312.06; p &lt; 0.001). Among gynecological cancer patients, mortality was significantly reduced by PCI (OR 0.58, 95%CI 0.39–0.85; p = 0.006) and being in East North Central, West North Central, South Atlantic, and Mountain regions (all p &lt; 0.03) compared to New England. PCI reduced mortality but not significantly for metastatic patients (OR 0.74, 95%CI 0.32–1.71; p = 0.481). Eighteen extra gynecological cancer patients' lives were saved with PCI for a net national cost of $3.18 billion and a CER of $176.50 million per averted death.

Conclusion

This large propensity score analysis suggests that PCI may cost inefficiently reduce mortality for gynecological cancer patients, amid income and geographic disparities in outcomes.

Prevalence and outcome of patients with cancer and acute coronary syndrome undergoing percutaneous coronary intervention: a BleeMACS substudy

BACKGROUND

The prevalence and outcome of patients with cancer that experience acute coronary syndrome (ACS) have to be determined.

METHODS AND RESULTS

The BleeMACS project is a multicentre observational registry enrolling patients with acute coronary syndrome undergoing percutaneous coronary intervention worldwide in 15 hospitals. The primary endpoint was a composite event of death and re-infarction after one year of follow-up. Bleedings were the secondary endpoint. 15,401 patients were enrolled, 926 (6.4%) in the cancer group and 14,475 (93.6%) in the group of patients without cancer. Patients with cancer were older (70.8±10.3 vs. 62.8±12.1 years, P<0.001) with more severe comorbidities and presented more frequently with non-ST-segment elevation myocardial infarction compared with patients without cancer. After one year, patients with cancer more often experienced the composite endpoint (15.2% vs. 5.3%, P<0.001) and bleedings (6.5% vs. 3%, P<0.001). At multiple regression analysis the presence of cancer was the strongest independent predictor for the primary endpoint (hazard ratio (HR) 2.1, 1.8-2.5, P<0.001) and bleedings (HR 1.5, 1.1-2.1, P=0.015). Despite patients with cancer generally being undertreated, beta-blockers (relative risk (RR) 0.6, 0.4-0.9, P=0.05), angiotensin-converting enzyme inhibitors/angiotensin receptor blockers (RR 0.5, 0.3-0.8, P=0.02), statins (RR 0.3, 0.2-0.5, P<0.001) and dual antiplatelet therapy (RR 0.5, 0.3-0.9, P=0.05) were shown to be protective factors, while proton pump inhibitors (RR 1, 0.6-1.5, P=0.9) were neutral.

CONCLUSION

Cancer has a non-negligible prevalence in patients with acute coronary syndrome undergoing percutaneous coronary intervention, with a major risk of cardiovascular events and bleedings. Moreover, these patients are often undertreated from clinical despite medical therapy seems to be protective. Registration:The BleeMACS project (NCT02466854).

Optimal Medical Therapy in Patients with Malignancy Undergoing Percutaneous Coronary Intervention for Acute Coronary Syndrome: a BleeMACS Sub-Study

OBJECTIVE

Our objective was to define the most appropriate treatment for acute coronary syndrome (ACS) in patients with malignancy.

METHODS AND RESULTS

The BleeMACS project is a worldwide multicenter observational prospective registry in 16 hospitals enrolling patients with ACS undergoing percutaneous coronary intervention. Primary endpoints were death, re-infarction, and major adverse cardiac events (MACE; composite of death and re-infarction) after 1 year of follow-up. The secondary endpoint was bleeding events during follow-up. We performed sub-study analyses according to whether β-blockers (BBs), angiotensin-converting enzyme inhibitors (ACEIs) or angiotensin receptor blockers (ARBs), statins, or proton pump inhibitors (PPIs) were prescribed at discharge. We also calculated the propensity score for optimal medical therapy (OMT; combination of BB, ACEI/ARB, and statins). The study included 926 patients. According to the multivariate analysis, ACEIs/ARBs (hazard ratio [HR] 0.58, 95 % confidence interval [CI] 0.36-1.94; p = 0.03) and statins (HR 0.37, 95 % CI 0.23-0.61; p < 0.01) reduced the risk of MACE, while the effects of BBs (HR 0.85, 95 % CI 0.55-1.32; p = 0.48) and PPIs (HR 1.33, 95 % CI 0.83-2.12; p = 0.23) were not significant. OMT was prescribed at discharge in 300 (32.4 %) patients; after propensity score analysis, OMT showed a significant reduction in death (3 % vs. 12.5 %, HR 0.21, 95 % CI 0.1-0.4; log-rank p < 0.001) and MACE (6.7 vs. 15.2 %, log-rank p = 0.01).

CONCLUSION

In patients with ACS and malignancy, OMT reduces the risk of adverse events at 1 year; in particular, ACEIs/ARBs and statins were the most protective drugs. (Clinical trials identifier: NCT02466854).

Chalcone derivatives cause accumulation of colon cancer cells in the G2/M phase and induce apoptosis

AIMS

Chalcones, naturally occurring open-chain polyphenols abundant in plants, have demonstrated antiproliferative activity in several cancer cell lines. In the present study, the potential anticancer activity of two synthetic analogues named Ch1 and Ch2 in colon cancer cell line was investigated.

MAIN METHODS

Antiproliferative activities of both synthetic analogues were assessed by Growth Inhibition Assay (MTT) and xCELLigence cell analysis. Apoptosis was assessed by annexin V/PI staining (early stage) or by DNA fragmentation (final stage). To study the cell death mechanism induced by tested substances, we assessed a series of assays including measurements of the caspase 3 activity, membrane mitochondrial potential (MMP) changes, reactive oxygen species (ROS) production by flow cytometry and expression of important apoptosis-related genes by realtime PCR.

KEY FINDINGS

We found concentration and time-dependent cytotoxicity, inhibition of proliferation of Caco-2 cells after Ch1 and Ch2 treatment in parallel with G2/M phase cell cycle arrest and increased cell proportion in subG0/G1 population with annexin V positivity. We demonstrated that both Ch1 and Ch2 induced caspase-dependent cell death associated with increased ROS production, suppressed Bcl-2 and Bcl-xL and enhanced Bax expression. Treatment of Ch1 also suppressed α-, α1- and β5-tubulins, on the other hand Ch2 only suppressed α-tubulin expression.

SIGNIFICANCE

Presented chalcones induce apoptosis by intrinsic pathways, and therefore may be an interesting strategy for cancer therapy.

Large-scale automatic extraction of side effects associated with targeted anticancer drugs from full-text oncological articles

Targeted anticancer drugs such as imatinib, trastuzumab and erlotinib dramatically improved treatment outcomes in cancer patients, however, these innovative agents are often associated with unexpected side effects. The pathophysiological mechanisms underlying these side effects are not well understood. The availability of a comprehensive knowledge base of side effects associated with targeted anticancer drugs has the potential to illuminate complex pathways underlying toxicities induced by these innovative drugs. While side effect association knowledge for targeted drugs exists in multiple heterogeneous data sources, published full-text oncological articles represent an important source of pivotal, investigational, and even failed trials in a variety of patient populations. In this study, we present an automatic process to extract targeted anticancer drug-associated side effects (drug-SE pairs) from a large number of high profile full-text oncological articles. We downloaded 13,855 full-text articles from the Journal of Oncology (JCO) published between 1983 and 2013. We developed text classification, relationship extraction, signaling filtering, and signal prioritization algorithms to extract drug-SE pairs from downloaded articles. We extracted a total of 26,264 drug-SE pairs with an average precision of 0.405, a recall of 0.899, and an F1 score of 0.465. We show that side effect knowledge from JCO articles is largely complementary to that from the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) drug labels. Through integrative correlation analysis, we show that targeted drug-associated side effects positively correlate with their gene targets and disease indications. In conclusion, this unique database that we built from a large number of high-profile oncological articles could facilitate the development of computational models to understand toxic effects associated with targeted anticancer drugs.

A comparison of cardiomyocyte cytotoxic mechanisms for 5-fluorouracil and its pro-drug capecitabine

1. 5-Fluorouracil (5-FU) and its prodrug capecitabine are key chemotherapeutic agents in the treatment of many gastrointestinal tract adenocarcinomas. In addition to their beneficial antitumor effects, they also possess undesired cardiac toxicity. In the present study, we investigated the cytotoxic mechanisms of 5-FU and capecitabine in freshly isolated rat cardiomyocytes. 2. 5-FU and capecitabine cytotoxicities were associated with reactive oxygen species (ROS) formation, lipid peroxidation and rapid glutathione depletion. Increased intracellular ROS could target mitochondria, and our findings confirmed that the cardiomyocytes mitochondrial membrane potential (ΔΨm) was rapidly decreased by 5-FU and capecitabine. Mitochondrial dysfunction subsequently initiates downstream events that trigger caspase-3 activation, and our results showed that 5-FU and capecitabine activated caspase-3 which leads to apoptosis or necrosis. However, 5-FU acted much more powerful than capecitabine at inducing several cytotoxicity markers in heart cardiomyocytes. In addition, 5-FU but not capecitabine caused lysosomal membrane leakiness when it was incubated with cardiomyocytes. All cytotoxicity markers were prevented by antioxidants, ROS scavengers, mitochondrial permeability transition (MPT) pore sealing agents and lysosomotropic agents. 3. Our findings showed that the cytotoxic action of 5-FU and capecitabine on cardiomyocytes are mediated by oxidative stress and subsequent mitochondrial dysfunction which causes caspase-3 activation and cell death.

Automatic signal extraction, prioritizing and filtering approaches in detecting post-marketing cardiovascular events associated with targeted cancer drugs from the FDA Adverse Event Reporting System (FAERS)

OBJECTIVE

Targeted drugs dramatically improve the treatment outcomes in cancer patients; however, these innovative drugs are often associated with unexpectedly high cardiovascular toxicity. Currently, cardiovascular safety represents both a challenging issue for drug developers, regulators, researchers, and clinicians and a concern for patients. While FDA drug labels have captured many of these events, spontaneous reporting systems are a main source for post-marketing drug safety surveillance in 'real-world' (outside of clinical trials) cancer patients. In this study, we present approaches to extracting, prioritizing, filtering, and confirming cardiovascular events associated with targeted cancer drugs from the FDA Adverse Event Reporting System (FAERS).

DATA AND METHODS

The dataset includes records of 4,285,097 patients from FAERS. We first extracted drug-cardiovascular event (drug-CV) pairs from FAERS through named entity recognition and mapping processes. We then compared six ranking algorithms in prioritizing true positive signals among extracted pairs using known drug-CV pairs derived from FDA drug labels. We also developed three filtering algorithms to further improve precision. Finally, we manually validated extracted drug-CV pairs using 21 million published MEDLINE records.

RESULTS

We extracted a total of 11,173 drug-CV pairs from FAERS. We showed that ranking by frequency is significantly more effective than by the five standard signal detection methods (246% improvement in precision for top-ranked pairs). The filtering algorithm we developed further improved overall precision by 91.3%. By manual curation using literature evidence, we show that about 51.9% of the 617 drug-CV pairs that appeared in both FAERS and MEDLINE sentences are true positives. In addition, 80.6% of these positive pairs have not been captured by FDA drug labeling.

CONCLUSIONS

The unique drug-CV association dataset that we created based on FAERS could facilitate our understanding and prediction of cardiotoxic events associated with targeted cancer drugs.