[Late cardiac complications of radiation therapy]

Mediastinal irradiation treatment has drastically improved the prognosis for several neoplasms, mostly particularly breast cancer and lymphoma. Nonetheless, the increase in survival is accompanied by side effects, including cardiac complications that often appear much later.

This patient with Hodgkin disease received radiation therapy. Complications developed 28 years later and included conduction disorders and chronic pericarditis, first exudative and then constrictive.

As the literature shows, different cardiac complications of radiation therapy can follow one another. Attentive long-term monitoring is necessary for appropriate treatment.