Abstract:
AIMS Doxorubicin-induced cardiotoxicity (DIC) is a significant cause of mortality in cancer care. This study was conducted
to establish the frequency of DIC in Zimbabwean breast cancer patients on doxorubicin and to test the DIC predictive power
of genetic biomarkers. METHODS A cohort of 50 Zimbabwean breast cancer patients treated with doxorubicin were followed
up for 12 months with serial echocardiography and genotyped for UGTA1A6*4, SLC28A3 and RARG. 11% of the patients
experienced DIC. RESULTS The frequency of SLC28A3 (rs7853758), UGT1A6*4 (rs17863783) and RARG (rs2229774) was
60.7%, 17.9% and 14.3% respectively. No association between DIC and the three variants was observed. CONCLUSIONS This
is the first study on the prevalence of DIC and associated genetic biomarker predictive evaluation in Zimbabwean breast cancer
patients. The genetic frequencies observed in our study was different to that reported in other populations. A larger sample
size with a longer follow up time will be necessary in future studies
