Cardiotoxicity and pharmacogenetics of doxorubicin in black Zimbabwean
breast cancer patients
Abstract
AIMS Doxorubicin-induced cardiotoxicity (DIC) is a significant cause of
mortality in cancer care. This study was conducted to establish the
frequency of DIC in Zimbabwean breast cancer patients on doxorubicin and
to test the DIC predictive power of genetic biomarkers. METHODS A cohort
of 50 Zimbabwean breast cancer patients treated with doxorubicin were
followed up for 12 months with serial echocardiography and genotyped for
UGTA1A6*4, SLC28A3 and RARG. 11% of the patients experienced DIC.
RESULTS The frequency of SLC28A3 (rs7853758), UGT1A6*4 (rs17863783) and
RARG (rs2229774) was 60.7%, 17.9% and 14.3% respectively. No
association between DIC and the three variants was observed. CONCLUSIONS
This is the first study on the prevalence of DIC and associated genetic
biomarker predictive evaluation in Zimbabwean breast cancer patients.
The genetic frequencies observed in our study was different to that
reported in other populations. A larger sample size with a longer follow
up time will be necessary in future studies.