Curing Cancer, Saving the Heart: A Challenge That Cardioncology Should Not Miss

Advances in oncologic therapies have led to considerable improvements in prognosis and survival. However, these improvements may ultimately be diminished by the increase of cardiovascular side effects. Typically, both conventional and new antitumoral therapies may induce asymptomatic or symptomatic left ventricular dysfunction. Its development still remains a major deterrent that may compromise clinical effectiveness of cancer treatment, independently of the oncologic prognosis, having a serious impact on the patient’s survival and quality of life. Hence, prevention of cardiotoxicity remains a crucial topic both for cardiologists and oncologists. Many strategies to mitigate the risk of cardiotoxicity have been developed, including cardiac function monitoring, limitation of chemotherapy doses, use of anthracycline analogues and cardioprotectants, and early detection of cardiotoxicity by biomarkers, followed by prophylactic intervention in selected high risk patients. We reviewed the currently available approaches which have been demonstrated to be effective in preventing or limiting cancer drug-induced cardiotoxicity.