Cancer therapy and cardiotoxicity: The need of serial Doppler echocardiography

Cancer therapy has shown terrific progress leading to important reduction of morbidity and mortality of several kinds of cancer. The therapeutic management of oncologic patients includes combinations of drugs, radiation therapy and surgery. Many of these therapies produce adverse cardiovascular complications which may negatively affect both the quality of life and the prognosis. For several years the most common noninvasive method of monitoring cardiotoxicity has been represented by radionuclide ventriculography while other tests as effort EKG and stress myocardial perfusion imaging may detect ischemic complications, and 24-hour Holter monitoring unmask suspected arrhythmias. Also biomarkers such as troponine I and T and B-type natriuretic peptide may be useful for early detection of cardiotoxicity. Today, the widely used non-invasive method of monitoring cardiotoxicity of cancer therapy is, however, represented by Doppler-echocardiography which allows to identify the main forms of cardiac complications of cancer therapy: left ventricular (systolic and diastolic) dysfunction, valve heart disease, pericarditis and pericardial effusion, carotid artery lesions. Advanced ultrasound tools, as Integrated Backscatter and Tissue Doppler, but also simple ultrasound detection of "lung comet" on the anterior and lateral chest can be helpful for early, subclinical diagnosis of cardiac involvement. Serial Doppler echocardiographic evaluation has to be encouraged in the oncologic patients, before, during and even late after therapy completion. This is crucial when using anthracyclines, which have early but, most importantly, late, cumulative cardiac toxicity. The echocardiographic monitoring appears even indispensable after radiation therapy, whose detrimental effects may appear several years after the end of irradiation

Cell type-specific over-expression of chromosome 21 genes in fibroblasts and fetal hearts with trisomy 21

BACKGROUND: Down syndrome (DS) is caused by trisomy 21 (+21), but the aberrations in gene expression resulting from this chromosomal aneuploidy are not yet completely understood. METHODS: We used oligonucleotide microarrays to survey mRNA expression in early- and late-passage control and +21 fibroblasts and mid-gestation fetal hearts. We supplemented this analysis with northern blotting, western blotting, real-time RT-PCR, and immunohistochemistry. RESULTS: We found chromosome 21 genes consistently over-represented among the genes over-expressed in the +21 samples. However, these sets of over-expressed genes differed across the three cell/tissue types. The chromosome 21 gene MX1 was strongly over-expressed (mean 16-fold) in senescent +21 fibroblasts, a result verified by northern and western blotting. MX1 is an interferon target gene, and its mRNA was induced by interferons present in +21 fibroblast conditioned medium, suggesting an autocrine loop for its over-expression. By immunohistochemistry the p78(MX1 )protein was induced in lesional tissue of alopecia areata, an autoimmune disorder associated with DS. We found strong over-expression of the purine biosynthesis gene GART (mean 3-fold) in fetal hearts with +21 and verified this result by northern blotting and real-time RT-PCR. CONCLUSION: Different subsets of chromosome 21 genes are over-expressed in different cell types with +21, and for some genes this over-expression is non-linear (>1.5X). Hyperactive interferon signaling is a candidate pathway for cell senescence and autoimmune disorders in DS, and abnormal purine metabolism should be investigated for a potential role in cardiac defects

Comportamento de híbridos de couve chinesa à isolados de Plasmodiophora brassicae

Analisou-se o comportamento de cinco híbridos comerciais de couve chinesa perante a agressividade de 24 isolados de Plasmodiophora brassicae provenientes de diferentes regiões do estado de São Paulo. O ensaio foi conduzido em casa de vegetação e delineado em blocos ao acaso. Verificou-se que os cinco híbridos foram suscetíveis a todos os isolados de P.brassicae, sendo o hibrido 3 com comportamento mais resistente e o hibrido 2 com o comportamento mais suscetível. Dentre os isolados, verificou-se que os isolados de Piedade-SP foram os mais agressivos e os isolados Ribeirão Preto-SP foram os menos agressivos perante os cinco híbridos

Usefulness of dobutamine stress tests for detection of cardiac abnormalities in dogs with experimentally induced early left ventricular dysfunction.

To determine whether dobutamine stress tests (DST) can be used to detect cardiac dysfunction in dogs with early left ventricular dysfunction (ELVD) induced by rapid right ventricular pacing (RRVP).Journal Articleinfo:eu-repo/semantics/publishe