Doxorubicin-associated Cardiac Remodeling Followed by CMR in Breast Cancer Patients

Patients had prescribed endovenous doxorubicin as part of their chemotherapy regimen (mean cumulative dose 102,66 mg/m2, administered in 4 doses with 21 days interval).

Patients were imaged in supine position in a 3T magnet (Achieva, Philips Medical Systems, Best, The Netherlands). The protocol consisted of electrocardiographically gated cine imaging with steady state free-precession to assess left ventricular (LV) ejection fraction and LV mass. For imaging of late gadolinium-DTPA enhancement (LGE) we used an inversion-recovery-prepared, gradient-echo sequence with segmented acquisition, which was triggered every other heartbeat. LGE images were acquired during end-expiratory breath-holding, after administration of Dotarem. T1 was performed with a Look-Locker sequence with a non-slice-selective adiabatic inversion pulse, followed by segmented gradient-echo acquisition for 17 times after inversion, covering approximately two cardiac cycles. T1 imaging was repeated in the same LV short-axis slice, once before and five to seven times after the injection of gadolinium to cover an approximately 30-min period of slow contrast clearance.

LGE images were acquired starting within 10 min after bolus administration of a cumulative dose of 0.2 mmol/Kg of gadoterate meglumine (Dotarem, Guerbet, Aulnay-sous-Bois, France).