Background: In patients with aggressive malignancies who are undergoing high-dose chemotherapy, even minimal elevation of troponin I (TnI) is associated with late left ventricular dysfunction. The time course of the subclinical myocardial damage and its impact on the clinical outcome have never been investigated previously.
Methods And Results: In 703 cancer patients, we measured TnI soon after chemotherapy (early TnI) and 1 month later (late TnI).