Onco-cardiology, or Cardio-oncology

I was at a Cardiology Education Meeting where a case was presented of a patient receiving a monoclonal antibody for melanoma, who may have then developed myocarditis.
Onco-cardiology (or cardio-oncology) is the study of the cardiac effects of cancer treatment but also used to refer to patients who are cancer survivors with a cardiac condition or people living with both conditions.

Though not a new term, I don't remember coming across it before.   

Here is some introductory reading:

Some recent freely available articles (with links to PubMed):

Cardio-Oncology: An Update on Cardiotoxicity of Cancer-Related Treatment. (review)


Cardio-oncology/onco-cardiology (review)

Cardio-oncology: what you need to know now for clinical practice and echocardiography. (review) 


Evaluation and management of patients with heart disease and cancer: cardio-oncology. (review)

Onco-cardiology: the time has come.

An update on cardio-oncology.

There is also a review from JAMA Cardiology (not free).

The American College of Cardiology  and American Society for Clinical Oncology have pages about onco-cardiology.

Then there are Canadian guidelines on the evaluation of cardiovascular complications of cancer therapy.

And a freely available 2013 European Heart Journal article about cancer drugs and the heart.



(All links were checked on 6th February 2018)

ECG interpretation

In my last post I mentioned ECGs.

And as well as the book mentioned in the last post, there are the various books by John Hampton:

• ECG made easy
• 150 ECG cases
• ECG in practice

Look for them in your library!

But there are limitations to books when it comes to teaching and learning interpretation of ECGs. 

That is pointed out on the ECG Wave-Maven site, used as the source of ECGs at the Cardiology education meeting I have just returned from:

Nathanson LA, McClennen S, Safran C, Goldberger AL. ECG Wave-Maven: Self-Assessment Program for Students and Clinicians. 

You can browse a case list, with or without diagnoses, or see a random case, and you can search for particular diagnoses.   If you like it on Facebook, you get notifications of new cases.

Here are some other sites about ECG interpretation.  Some I mentioned last time, some not.

ECG Learning Center, University of Utah 

Life in the Fast Lane, ECG Library 

Analysis and interpretation of the electrocardiogram, Queen's University School of Medicine (Kingston, Ontario)

ECG (EKG) interpretation, Oxford Medical Education (read this to find out more about them - not part of Oxford University or OUP).

ECGpedia - tutorials, a textbook, reference cards, case of the month...   maintained by Jonas de Jong, a cardiologist in Amsterdam, who is also involved with the Textbook of Cardiology wiki.  (ECGpedia in Nederlands).

(Links were checked on 6th February 2018)

Heart Rhythm Week - things about arrhythmia

This week is Heart RhythmWeek, with a focus on identifying undiagnosed people who have an irregular heartbeat.

To see if you have an irregular heartbeat, you of course have to take your pulse, and the Arrhythmia Alliance have instructions and instructions for children, along with other educationa lresources.

Here are some other resources about arrhythmia:

• NHS Choices, arrhythmia, with brief details of the main sorts of arrhythmia and links to other NHS resources.
• NICE, everything they have produced about heart rhythm conditions.
• British Heart Foundation.
• MedlinePlus.
• European Heart Rhythm Association, including guidelines, a key messages app, and the “White Book” about electrophysiology and ICDs.
• American Heart Association, who also have some animations.  The NationalHeart, Lung, and Blood Institute have animations as well.

For electrophysiology in general you could start with Dr John M, a Kentucky based cardiac Electrophysiologist.

And for ECGs of arrhythmias and other conditions, you could start with Life in the Fast Lane or Patient.info.

In the library I found "Making sense of the ECG", 4th ed., by Houghton and Gray.  in the list of resources are:

ECGpedia - tutorials, a textbook, reference cards, case of the month...   maintained by Jonas de Jong, a cardiologist in Amsterdam, who is also involved with the Textbook of Cardiology wiki.

ECG Learning Center, from the University of Utah School of Medicine, with an introduction to the ECG, images and tests. 

Speak to your librarian, if you have one, as the library will have books about this condition and about interpreting ECGs, a favourite topic at cardiology education meetings.   

(All links were checked on 6th February 2018)