Risk of cardiotoxicity is the most serious drawback of the clinical usefulness of anthracycline antineoplastic antibiotics, which however, remain among the most powerful and widely employed anticancer drugs. In this study we have used daunorubicin-induced cardiomyopathy in rabbits as a model to investigate possible cardioprotective effects of pyridoxal isonicotinoyl hydrazone (PIH)-a principal representative of a novel group of aroylhydrazone iron chelators. Three groups of animals were used: a control group (n=11; i.v. saline), daunorubicin-treated animals (n=11; 3mg/kg, i.v.), and animals pretreated with PIH (n=9, 25 mg/kg, i.p.) 60 min before daunorubicin administration. All substances were administered once weekly for 10 weeks. Repeated administration of daunorubicin caused premature death in four animals and induced conspicuous histopathological changes in the myocardium, progressive and significant impairment of systolic heart function (a decrease in left ventricular dP/dt(max), ejection fraction, an increase in the pre-ejection period/left ventricular ejection time index), and a gradual increase in cardiac troponin T plasma concentrations. On the contrary, all the PIH-treated animals have survived all daunorubicin applications. Furthermore, in this group, the daunorubicin-induced cardiac changes were in most functional, biochemical as well as morphological parameters less pronounced than in the group receiving daunorubicin alone. Hence, PIH and other aroylhydrazones merit further investigation as potentially protective agents against anthracycline-induced cardiotoxicity.

Department of Pharmacology and Toxicology Faculty of Pharmacy Charles University Prague Heyrovského 1203 500 05 Hradec Králové Czech Republic

References provided by Crossref.org

Oxidative stress, redox signaling, and metal chelation in anthracycline cardiotoxicity and pharmacological cardioprotection

Dexrazoxane-afforded protection against chronic anthracycline cardiotoxicity in vivo: effective rescue of cardiomyocytes from apoptotic cell death

Anthracycline toxicity to cardiomyocytes or cancer cells is differently affected by iron chelation with salicylaldehyde isonicotinoyl hydrazone

Iron is not involved in oxidative stress-mediated cytotoxicity of doxorubicin and bleomycin