A study looking at the heart (cardiac) side effects of epirubicin chemotherapy for breast cancer (BETTER-CARE)

The trial team found that about 1 in 5 women are likely to have an increased risk of long term heart problems after epirubicin. The researchers have results for 164 women who took part in this study.

Before having chemotherapy, the women had a heart scan known as a Cardiovascular Magnetic Resonance scan (CMR scan). This uses a powerful magnet and radio waves to form pictures of your heart and can show how much blood is pumped out with each heart beat. Everybody had another scan after they finished chemotherapy. And some women had an extra CMR scan a few days after their first dose of epirubicin.

The researchers found that the CMR scan after the first dose of epirubicin could show changes to the heart that may help to identify women who are more likely to have heart damage at the end of their treatment.

The scans after the end of treatment showed that in about 1 in 5 women (21%), the amount of blood pumped out by the heart had fallen by 5% or more. The researchers found that on average, these women weighed more than the other women in the trial. They were also more likely to have high blood pressure that had not been diagnosed or treated beforehand, and tended to have a higher percentage of body fat.

About 1 in 10 (10%) of the women taking part had high blood pressure at the beginning of the trial. The results show that these women were more likely to have changes to their heart after having epirubicin. The researchers recommend that people with high blood pressure start treatment to control it before having chemotherapy.

We have based this summary on information from the team who ran the trial.  As far as we are aware, the information they sent us has not been reviewed independently (peer reviewed ) or published in a medical journal yet. The figures we quote above were provided by the trial team. We have not analysed the data ourselves.