Research Article An Upgrade on the Rabbit Model of Anthracycline-Induced Cardiomyopathy: Shorter Protocol, Reduced Mortality, and Higher Incidence of Overt Dilated Cardiomyopathy

Copyright © 2015 Jesús Talavera et al. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. Current protocols of anthracycline-induced cardiomyopathy in rabbits present with high premature mortality and nephrotoxicity, thus rendering them unsuitable for studies requiring long-term functional evaluation of myocardial function (e.g., stem cell therapy). We compared two previously described protocols to an in-house developed protocol in three groups: Group DOX2 received doxorubicin 2mg/kg/week (8 weeks); Group DAU3 received daunorubicin 3mg/kg/week (10 weeks); and Group DAU4 received daunorubicin 4mg/kg/week (6 weeks). A cohort of rabbits received saline (control). Results of blood tests, cardiac troponin I, echocardiography, and histopathology were analysed. Whilst DOX2 and DAU3 rabbits showed high premature mortality (50 % and 33%, resp.), DAU4 rabbits showed 7.6 % premature mortality. None of DOX2 rabbits developed overt dilate