To learn more about the processes that lead to chemotherapy-associated cardiotoxicity, a team of researchers at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center (BIDMC) conducted a study to investigate whether early changes in energy-related metabolites in the blood—measured shortly after chemotherapy—could be used to identify patients who developed cardiotoxicity at a later time. The study, published by Asnani et al in the Journal of Cardiovascular Translational Research, found that metabolites associated with the mitochondria of the cell changed differently in patients who later developed cardiotoxicity compared to those who did not.