Gemcitabine-induced cardiomyopathy: a case report and review of the literature

INTRODUCTION:Newly developed antineoplastic drugs have resulted in improvements in morbidity and mortality from many forms of cancers. However, some of these new chemotherapeutic agents have potentially lethal side effects, which are now being exposed with their widespread use. Gemcitabine is a nucleoside analog, which is a commonly used agent for various solid organ malignancies. Phase 1 and 2 trials with gemcitabine did not show significant risk for cardiotoxicityhowever, with its widespread clinical use over the last decade, a few cases of cardiotoxicity related to gemcitabine use have been reported. Cardiomyopathy after the use of gemcitabine monotherapy is extremely rareand only one such case has been reported in detail previously.CASE PRESENTATION:We report a case of a 56-year-old African American man with pancreatic cancer who presented with signs and symptoms of congestive heart failure after being treated with gemcitabine for two cycles (six doses). A two-dimensional echocardiography showed left ventricular ejection fraction of 15 to 20 percent with global hypokinesia. With the absence of significant risk factors for coronary artery disease and a strong temporal relationship with the initiation of chemotherapy, it was concluded that our patient's cardiomyopathy was related to the use of gemcitabine. Gemcitabine was discontinued and our patient responded well to standard heart failure therapy. Two months later, a repeat echocardiogram showed significant improvements in left ventricular systolic function.CONCLUSIONS:Gemcitabine should be considered as a potential cause of cardiomyopathy in patients receiving chemotherapy with this drug. We need further studies to look into potential mechanisms and treatments of gemcitabine-induced cardiac dysfunction.This item is part of the UA Faculty Publications collection. For more information this item or other items in the UA Campus Repository, contact the University of Arizona Libraries at [email protected]

Optimal Balance of the Striatal Medium Spiny Neuron Network

<div><p>Slowly varying activity in the striatum, the main Basal Ganglia input structure, is important for the learning and execution of movement sequences. Striatal medium spiny neurons (MSNs) form cell assemblies whose population firing rates vary coherently on slow behaviourally relevant timescales. It has been shown that such activity emerges in a model of a local MSN network but only at realistic connectivities of and only when MSN generated inhibitory post-synaptic potentials (IPSPs) are realistically sized. Here we suggest a reason for this. We investigate how MSN network generated population activity interacts with temporally varying cortical driving activity, as would occur in a behavioural task. We find that at unrealistically high connectivity a stable winners-take-all type regime is found where network activity separates into fixed stimulus dependent regularly firing and quiescent components. In this regime only a small number of population firing rate components interact with cortical stimulus variations. Around connectivity a transition to a more dynamically active regime occurs where all cells constantly switch between activity and quiescence. In this low connectivity regime, MSN population components wander randomly and here too are independent of variations in cortical driving. Only in the transition regime do weak changes in cortical driving interact with many population components so that sequential cell assemblies are reproducibly activated for many hundreds of milliseconds after stimulus onset and peri-stimulus time histograms display strong stimulus and temporal specificity. We show that, remarkably, this activity is maximized at striatally realistic connectivities and IPSP sizes. Thus, we suggest the local MSN network has optimal characteristics – it is neither too stable to respond in a dynamically complex temporally extended way to cortical variations, nor is it too unstable to respond in a consistent repeatable way. Rather, it is optimized to generate stimulus dependent activity patterns for long periods after variations in cortical excitation.</p> </div

Incidence of diabetes in HIV-infected patients treated with first-line integrase strand transfer inhibitors: a French multicentre retrospective study

International audienceAbstract Background Integrase strand transfer inhibitors (INSTIs) are increasingly used in patients living with HIV due to their safety, effectiveness and high genetic barrier. However, an association with weight gain has recently been suggested and several cases of diabetes mellitus have been reported with raltegravir and dolutegravir. The long-time metabolic impact of these recent molecules remains unclear. Objectives To assess if an INSTI as a third agent is statistically associated with new-onset diabetes mellitus compared with an NNRTI or a PI. Patients and methods Patients undergoing first-line combined ART (cART) without diabetes at baseline were retrospectively included from the Dat’AIDS French cohort study (ClinicalTrials.gov NCT02898987). Incident diabetes mellitus was defined as a notification of new diabetes in the medical history, a glycated haemoglobin (HbA1c) level superior to 7.5% or the start of a diabetes therapy following the initiation of ART. Results From 2009 to 2017, 19 462 patients were included, among which 265 cases of diabetes mellitus occurred. Multivariate and survival analyses did not highlight an increase in new-onset diabetes in patients undergoing cART with an INSTI as a third agent compared with an NNRTI or a PI. BMI &gt;30 kg/m2, age &gt;37 years old (in survival analysis), black race or Hispanic ethnicity, arterial hypertension and AIDS were associated with a higher proportion of incident diabetes. Conclusions INSTIs were not statistically associated with new-onset diabetes. However, clinicians should remain aware of this possible metabolic comorbidity, particularly in patients with a high BMI and older patients

Reaching the Second and Third Joint United Nations Programme on Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV)/AIDS 90-90-90 Targets Is Accompanied by a Dramatic Reduction in Primary HIV Infection and in Recent HIV Infections in a Large French Nationwide HIV Cohort

International audienceAbstract Background In late 2013, France was one of the first countries to recommend initiation of combination antiretroviral therapy (cART) irrespective of CD4 cell count. Methods To assess the impact of achieving the second and third Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS 90-90-90 targets (ie, 90% of diagnosed people on sustained cART, and, of those, 90% virologically controlled) on human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) incidence, we conducted a longitudinal study to describe the epidemiology of primary HIV infection (PHI) and/or recent HIV infection (patients with CD4 cell count ≥500/mm3 at HIV diagnosis; (PRHI) between 2007 and 2017 in a large French multicenter cohort. To identify changes in trends in PHI and PRHI, we used single breakpoint linear segmented regression analysis. Results During the study period, 61 822 patients were followed in the Dat’AIDS cohort; 2027 (10.0%) had PHI and 7314 (36.1%) had PRHI. The second and third targets were reached in 2014 and 2013, respectively. The median delay between HIV diagnosis and cART initiation decreased from 9.07 (interquartile range [IQR], 1.39–33.47) months in 2007 to 0.77 (IQR, 0.37–1.60) months in 2017. A decrease in PHI (−35.1%) and PRHI (−25.4%) was observed starting in 2013. The breakpoints for PHI and PRHI were 2012.6 (95% confidence interval [CI], 2010.8–2014.4) and 2013.1 (95% CI, 2011.3–2014.8), respectively. Conclusions Our findings show that the achievements of 2 public health targets in France and the early initiation of cART were accompanied by a reduction of about one-third in PHI and PRHI between 2013 and 2017. Clinical Trials Registration NCT02898987