Understanding why some chemotherapy drugs can lead to long-term damage to the hearts of childhood cancer patients

Advances in our understanding of chemotherapy, has increased childhood cancer survival rates to over 80%. However, chemotherapies can cause damage to healthy cells in the body, leading to late-effects in childhood cancer survivors. One of the treatments known to causing significant damage to the heart are a a family of chemotherapy drugs called Anthracylines.

At the University of Salford, researchers are looking for ways to reduce the late effects on the heart caused by Anthracylines, by determining if supplementary therapies can prevent damage to healthy cells.

This project aims to understand how Anthracylines damage heart cells function, by studying molecules that are produced when cells are attacked by chemotherapy, Understanding how these molecules interfere with normal heart cell function, will help scientists to identify methods to counteract the damage being caused.