Statins: Promising Protective Shield against Doxorubicin Cardiotoxicity-Juniper Publishers
JUNIPER PUBLISHERS - OPEN ACCESS JOURNAL OF CARDIOLOGY & CARDIOVASCULAR THERAPY Opinion Doxorubicin (DOX) as a 40 year-old anthracycline antibiotic is a potent antineoplastic agent extensively used in the treatment of several malignancies [ 1 ]. Nevertheless, its clinical application carries the risk of serious non-target tissues toxicities, in particular cardiomyopathy, which manifests as life-threatening congestive heart failure [ 2 ]. It has been suggested that several mechanisms including reactive oxygen species over-generation, cardiomyocytes apoptosis, membrane-associated ion pumps dysfunction and topoisomerase II isoforms inhibition may be involved in DOX-induced cardiotoxicity [ 3 - 5 ]. To date, many studies have been carried out using adjunctive therapy to counteract DOX-evoked cardiac damages and it has been proposed that development of alternative cardioprotective strategies for management of DOX-related cardiotoxicity is inevitable [ 6 - 8 ]. However,...