Comprehensive review on cardio-oncology: Role of multimodality imaging.

Cancer and cardiovascular disease are the two leading causes of mortality worldwide. Evolving oncologic therapy, including the use of newer targeted agents, has led to an improvement in survival from childhood- and adult-onset cancers. Consequently, there has been a growing realization of cardiotoxic complications related to cancer therapy, with some complications manifesting over months to decades after completion of cancer treatment. This paper reviews cancer therapeutics-related cardiovascular toxicity and its manifestations, multimodality imaging techniques for surveillance and detection of this complication, and the current state of knowledge in this emerging field.

Diagnostic Approach to Myocarditis Mimicking Myocardial Infarction at Initial Presentation.

We present a case of a 35-year-old male patient with a 12-hour history of sudden-onset, crushing chest pain and associated complaints of profuse diaphoresis, nausea and vomiting. The patient was transferred to our institution from an outside hospital for evaluation and possible emergent catheterization. Left heart catheterization was conclusive for normal coronary arteries and a ventriculogram revealed a left ventricular ejection fraction of approximately 45%. Due to a suspicion of myocarditis based on clinical history, pertinent serology tests were ordered, which were found to be negative. Cardiac magnetic resonance on delayed enhancement imaging showed typical sub-epicardial enhancement in a pattern most consistent with myocarditis. The patient was eventually diagnosed with myocarditis and discharged home later, without needing a myocardial biopsy. We present and discuss here the indications of myocardial biopsy and compare the relative utility of cardiac magnetic resonance imaging in formulating the diagnosis of myocarditis.

Coronary Interventions before Liver Transplantation Might Not Avert Postoperative Cardiovascular Events.

Percutaneous coronary intervention and coronary artery bypass grafting may be performed before orthotopic liver transplantation (OLT) to try to improve the condition of patients who have severe ischemic heart disease. However, data supporting improved outcomes are lacking. We reviewed the medical records of 2,010 patients who underwent OLT at our hospital from 2000 through 2010. The 51 patients who underwent coronary artery angiography within 6 months of transplantation were included in this study: 28 had mild coronary artery disease, 10 had moderate disease, and 13 had severe disease. We compared all-cause and cardiac-cause mortality rates. We found a significant difference in cardiac deaths between the groups (P <0.001), but none in all-cause death (P=0.624). Of the 10 patients who had moderate coronary artery disease, one underwent pre-transplant coronary artery bypass grafting. Of 13 patients with severe disease, 3 underwent percutaneous coronary intervention, and 6 underwent coronary artery bypass grafting. Overall, 50% of patients who underwent either intervention died of cardiac-related causes, whereas no patient died of a cardiac-related cause after undergoing neither intervention (P <0.0001). We conclude that, despite coronary intervention, mortality rates remain high in OLT patients who have severe coronary artery disease.