Early Change in Area Strain Detected by 3D Speckle Tracking Is Associated With Subsequent Cardiotoxicity in Patients Treated With Low Doses of Anthracyclines.

Objective: To evaluate the prognostic impact of the parameters of myocardial deformation using three-dimensional speckle tracking echocardiography (3DSTE) in patients with breast cancer who underwent chemotherapy with low doses of anthracyclines.

Background: Chemotherapy-related cardiotoxicity has an important prognostic impact on cancer survivors. Three-dimensional STE has revealed more consistent data than two-dimensional techniques and may represent a more accurate tool in the evaluation of myocardial function in patients who underwent chemotherapy.

Cardioprotection conferred by exercise training is blunted by blockade of the opioid system.

Objectives: To investigate the effect of opioid receptor blockade on the myocardial protection conferred by chronic exercise and to compare exercise training with different strategies of myocardial protection (opioid infusion and brief periods of ischemia-reperfusion) preceding irreversible left anterior descending coronary ligation.

Introduction: The acute cardioprotective effects of exercise training are at least partly mediated through opioid receptor-dependent mechanisms in ischemia-reperfusion models.

Methods: Male Wistar rats (n = 76) were randomly assigned to 7 groups: (1) control; (2) exercise training; (3) morphine; (4) intermittent ischemia-reperfusion (three alternating periods of left anterior descending coronary occlusion and reperfusion); (5) exercise training+morphine; (6) naloxone (a non-selective opioid receptor blocker) plus morphine; (7) naloxone before each exercise-training session.