Research progress on the effect of anesthesia on anthracycline cardiotoxicity

Anthracycline-based antitumor drugs are one of the highly effective broad-spectrum anti-cancer drugs that are commonly used clinically. However, anthracyclines have the serious side effect of cumulative dose-related cardiotoxicity. Clinically, intake of myocardial protective drugs is one of the most important strategies for the safe use of anthracyclines in chemotherapy. Numerous cancer patients un- dergoing chemotherapy also require surgery, during which general anesthesia is commonly used. Various studies have shown that propofol and sevoflurane, the most commonly used general anesthetics, present a significant protective effect in myocardial ischemia-reperfusion damage. Therefore, for patients who have just undergone chemotherapy with anthracyclines, anthracycline-induced myocardial injury may occur at the acute or chronic phase of surgery. Consequently, if the effect of anesthetics on the cardiotoxicity of anthracyclines is similar to the protective effect of these drugs for myocardial ischemia-reperfusion damage, this protective effect on cardiotoxicity will have significant impact on the recovery of cardiopulmonary function of patients after surgery. Thus, further studies are needed to establish the effect of anesthetics on the cardiotoxicity of anthracyclines.