Treatment of anthracycline extravasation with dexrazoxane -- clinical experience.

Background: Accidental extravasation is a severe complication when administering anthracyclines. We describe 3 cases of extravasation with 3 different anthracyclines.

Patients And Methods: One patient came from another hospital for a second opinion after an epirubicin extravasation. Only surgical debridement of the necrotic tissue was possible. The other two extravasations occurred during treatment with doxorubicin and doxorubicin- EMCH, respectively, in our department. Both patients were treated with dexrazoxane within 6 h of the event.

Results: The 2 patients treated with dexrazoxane recovered completely without any sequelae.

Conclusions: Treatment of antracycline extravasation with dexrazoxane is potentially useful and safe.