Letters To The Editor
Copyright ©The Author(s) 2015. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved.
World J Clin Cases. Feb 16, 2015; 3(2): 204-205
Published online Feb 16, 2015. doi: 10.12998/wjcc.v3.i2.204
Is Takotsubo syndrome in patients receiving chemotherapy drug-specific?
John E Madias
John E Madias, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, New York, NY 10029, United States
John E Madias, Division of Cardiology, Elmhurst Hospital Center, Elmhurst, NY 11373, United States
Author contributions: Madias JE solely contributed to this manuscript.
Conflict-of-interest: None.
Open-Access: This article is an open-access article which was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Correspondence to: John E Madias, MD, FACC, FAHA, Division of Cardiology, Elmhurst Hospital Center, 79-01 Broadway, Elmhurst, NY 11373, United States. madiasj@nychhc.org
Telephone: +1-718-3345005 Fax: +1-718-3345990
Received: October 19, 2014
Peer-review started: October 21, 2014
First decision: December 3, 2014
Revised: December 12, 2014
Accepted: December 29, 2014
Article in press: December 31, 2014
Published online: February 16, 2015
Abstract

In commenting on a case report of a 55-year-old man who suffered Takotsubo syndrome (TTS), in the setting of receiving chemotherapy with cytarabine and daunorubicin for acute myeloid leukemia, the author expresses his views that TTS in the setting of chemotherapy for malignancies may not be chemotherapeutic drug-specific (like in the chemotherapeutic drug induced-cardiomyopathy), but may be due to the emotional and physical stresses resulting from the realization of having diagnosed with a malignancy, and the diagnostic testing, and therapeutic management which follows.

Keywords: Daunorubicin, Radiotherapy, Cardiotoxicity, Takotsubo syndrome, Malignancies, Chemotherapy, Cytarabine, Anthracyclines, Cardiomyopathy, Autonomic sympathetic Nervous system.

Core tip: Is Takotsubo syndrome, in time proximity to chemotherapy, due to the specific chemotherapeutic agent?