Childhood Chemo Alters Heart’s Caretaker Cells
Mays Cancer Center Annual Report
Cancer chemotherapy changes the function of cells that repair heart injury, researchers at the Greehey Children’s Cancer Research Institute (GCCRI) at UT Health San Antonio discovered. Twenty percent of children treated with drugs called anthracyclines go on to suffer heart failure later in life.
The journal PLOS ONE published the results Sept. 22, 2020, during Childhood Cancer Awareness Month. Study senior author Gregory Aune, MD, PhD, of the GCCRI, said they are working to understand why some children who are exposed to anthracycline therapy develop problems with the heart three to four decades later. The cardiac fibroblast, which acts as a sort of caretaker.
