RESULTS
Subjects Ninety-nine patients with diffuse large B-cell lymphoma were eligible. Of those, 3 patients were excluded from the analysis because of poor image quality (defined as >2 non-visualized segments). A total of 96 patients, 57 males, ranging in age from 24 to 78 years were finally included in the statistical analysis. All patients had received anthracycline-based regimens, and the median cumulative anthracycline dose was 380 mg/m2 (range, 280-560 mg/m2). Patients were studied a median of 6.1 years (range, 4.9-7.6 years) after the completion of chemotherapy (Figure 1). Fifteen patients had a history of hypertension and six had a history of diabetes, which were well controlled by medication. Twenty-nine patients had a history of smoking or were current smokers. Of the 18 patients with CAE, 8 developed arrhythmia (ventricular tachyarrhythmia-2 atrial fibrillation-6), heart failure-5, subclinical cardiac dysfunctions-3 and acute myocardial infarctions leading to death-2. No patients required acute treatment for dehydration or additional intravenous fluids beyond the standard chemotherapy. None of the patients received other cardiotoxic therapy, radiation therapy, or targeted therapy.
The comparison of the clinical characteristics of patients with and those without CAE is presented in Table 1. Patients with and without CAE had similar age, sex distribution, weights, and cumulative of doxorubicin.