Review Article Animal Models in Studies of Cardiotoxicity Side Effects from Antiblastic Drugs in Patients and Occupational Exposed Workers

Copyright © 2014 Monica Lamberti 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. Cardiotoxicity is an important side effect of cytotoxic drugs andmay be a risk factor of long-termmorbidity for both patients during therapy and also for staff exposed during the phases of manipulation of antiblastic drugs. The mechanism of cardiotoxicity studied in vitro and in vivo essentially concerns the formation of free radicals leading to oxidative stress, with apoptosis of cardiac cells or immunologic reactions, but other mechanisms may play a role in antiblastic-induced cardiotoxicity. Actually, some new cytotoxic drugs like trastuzumab and cyclopentenyl cytosine show cardiotoxic effects. In this report we discuss the different mechanisms of cardiotoxicity induced by antiblastic drugs assessed using animal models. 1