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Patchy Myocardial Fibrosis 20 Years after Radiation Therapy
Author(s) -
Wyman Rachael A.,
Rahko Peter S.
Publication year - 2007
Publication title -
echocardiography
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.404
H-Index - 62
eISSN - 1540-8175
pISSN - 0742-2822
DOI - 10.1111/j.1540-8175.2006.00352.x
Subject(s) - fibrosis , ventricle , medicine , radiation therapy , autopsy , myocardial fibrosis , biopsy , infiltration (hvac) , cardiomyopathy , radiology , sarcoma , external beam radiation , cardiology , pathology , heart failure , physics , thermodynamics
We describe a case of a young woman diagnosed with Ewings sarcoma at age 8 and treated with adriamycin and radiation therapy. Twenty years later the patient has a cardiomyopathy and a focal area of patchy infiltration of fibrotic tissue along the left ventricle and atrium. Although fibrosis due to radiation exposure has been demonstrated on biopsy and autopsy studies, we are not aware of previous reports of echocardiographic demonstration of this finding. The most likely explanation for the fibrosis location is the left posterolateral direction of the radiation beam.