From heart to heart for breast cancer patients - Cardiovascular toxicities in breast cancer radiotherapy

摘要

A recent paper by Darby et al. [1] on heart toxicities after radiotherapy of breast cancer generated a strong debate in the medical and nonmedical press [2]. In the modern era of 3D conformal radiation oncology, few of us have seen patients with heart toxicities, but does this mean that the topic is obsolete? The paper by Darby et al. [1] is a landmark in this field of clinical research. It is a large and very carefully designed case-control study on radiation-induced major coronary events (i.e., myocardial infarction, coronary stenting, or death from ischemic heart disease) after postoperative radiotherapy of breast cancer.