Radiation-Induced Heart Disease

That high doses of x irradiation can damage the heart and pericardium is common knowledge among radiotherapists and radiobiologists. A small number of case reports have described cardiac lesions following radiotherapy of thoracic cancer; the prevailing feeling, however, is that such complications are rare and relatively unimportant (1). The purpose of this report is to review 25 cases in which significant heart disease followed radiation therapy to the chest for a variety of malignant tumors. Study of this unique series of patients from a single institution has provided data on the relative frequency of the various clinical features encountered and their correlation with the radiation technics and doses used, as well as estimates of the incidence of this group of complications in an irradiated population. The importance of recognizing cardiac complications and differentiating them from the manifestations of advancing neoplasm is emphasized. A previous report (2) described in detail the clinical findings, ...