Given the young age of our survivor population and the rarity of other diseases in young patients, the increased values of NTproBNP found in survivors may provide an useful information on late ANT subclinical cardiotoxicity. Conclusions Higher levels of NTproBNP detected in childhood leukemia survivors after low anthracycline cumulative doses might reflect an initial stage of ANT cardiotoxicity before the development of echocardiographic abnormalities. Although the
current studies support NTproBNP as one of the best available biochemical markers of late anthracycline cardiotoxicity, a possible strategy toward further improvement and combination with other cardiac biomarkers and novel echocardiographic methods should be explored in additional studies. Acknowledgments The authors thank Katarina Ondrejkovicova, M.Sc., for assistance with the analyses BIRB 796 price of biomarkers. This work was supported by a grant of the Scientific Agency of the Ministry of Health 2007/42-UK-18, Slovak Republic. References 1. Mulrooney DA, Yeazel MW, Kawashima T, Mertens AC, Mitby P, Stovall M, Donaldson SS, Green DM, Sklar CA, Robison LL, Leisenring WM: Cardiac outcomes in a cohort of adult survivors of childhood and adolescent cancer: retrospective analysis of the Childhood Cancer Survivor Study cohort. BMJ 2009, 339:b4606.PubMedCrossRef 2. Lipshultz
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