Detection of Anthracycline Induced Cardiotoxicity in Lymphoma

  • Research type

    Research Study

  • Full title

    Detection of early anthracycline induced cardiotoxicity using speckle tracking echocardiography in patients with lymphoma: a retrospective cohort study

  • IRAS ID

    251233

  • Contact name

    Sharareh Vahabi

  • Contact email

    sharareh.vahabi@nhs.net

  • Sponsor organisation

    South Tees NHS Foundation Trust

  • Clinicaltrials.gov Identifier

    84544539, ISRCTN

  • Duration of Study in the UK

    1 years, 0 months, 1 days

  • Research summary

    Lymphoma is the fifth most common type of cancer in the UK and can affect individuals at any age. Chemotherapy is the main treatment for lymphoma. Anthracyclines are a type of chemotherapy commonly used for the treatment of lymphoma. These medications are considered to be very effective due to their anti-cancer properties; lymphoma can be cured using anthracyclines in combination with other chemotherapy. However benefits come at the cost of adverse effects. One of the most important side effects associated with anthracyclines is heart damage.

    Heart scans called echocardiograms (echo for short) are commonly used for detecting heart damage induced by anthracyclines. However the current measurements used for identifying heart damage are not very good. When a change is seen, damage is already established and the chance of full recovery is low. Therefore better methods are required for detecting anthracycline related heart damage. This research study is observational, exploring the use of newer echo measurements. We hope that in the future these new measures will help in detecting anthracycline induced heart damage earlier. Before new measures can be used, we need to understand better how reliable and sensitive they are in this important patient group.

    We propose to re-analyse echo scans already performed as part of standard care in patients treated for lymphoma over the past few years. This is called retrospective analysis. This will be performed using new analytical equipment on scans that are archived. No additional burden will be imposed on patients and patients will not require any hospital visits or intervention. Through this analysis of previous echo scans, we hope to establish how reproducible these new echo methods are, how the advanced measurements change during chemotherapy, and whether they are likely to be useful in future research projects. This information will be combined with patients' background medical history.

  • REC name

    South East Scotland REC 02

  • REC reference

    18/SS/0139

  • Date of REC Opinion

    28 Oct 2018

  • REC opinion

    Favourable Opinion