Understanding the steps the drug takes when attacking the heart can help researchers identify those patients who are sensitive to heart damage by doxorubicin, Yeh was quoted as saying. "Once identified, those patients can be placed on alternative cancer drugs, or on special drugs to protect the heart," Yeh added.
Yeh and his colleagues showed that when a protein known as Top2b was eliminated in the heart muscles of laboratory mice, the mice were protected against and avoided heart damage from the toxic side effects of doxorubicin.
This finding suggests that Top2b triggers the drug's effect on cancer patients, said Yeh.
"This is obviously a significant finding," he said, "and one with the potential to help scientists develop a blood test to predict patients' sensitivity to this drug, and to completely eliminate its dreaded side effects."
Researchers from the Shanghai Jiao Tong University School of Medicine in China and the Robert Wood Johnson Medical School in New Jersey also participated in the study, said the report.
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