Cardiac involvement in patients with hematologic malignancies.

Authors have reviewed literature about the management of patients with cardiologic disease occurring secondary to hematologic pathology itself or its therapy, with a focus on infiltration of myocardium in acute and chronic leukemia, lymphoma, multiple myeloma, and hypereosinophilic syndrome. Moreover, they evaluated chemotherapy-associated toxicity, particularly for new drugs such as monoclonal antibody therapy, tyrosine kinase inhibitors, arsenic trioxide, bortezomib, and epigenetic therapy. In fact, cardiac toxicity may range from asymptomatic subclinical abnormalities, such as electrocardiographic changes and left ventricular ejection decline, to life-threatening events and lead to chemotherapy dose reduction and delay and, in some cases, for patients with severe side effects, discontinuation of treatment. Finally, they discussed on the identification of early markers of cardiac injury and on cardiac stem cell therapy as a promising approach to facilitate myocardial regeneration.