[Congestive cardiomyopathy after doxorubicin (adriamycin)author's transl)]

Doxorubicin at a dose of 470 mg/m2 body surface, was administered to a 15-year-old boy with metastasising osteosarcoma. The cumulative dose caused severe "secondary congestive cardiomyopathy", which ended fatally, although the cumulative dose was below the recommended limit of 550 mg/m2. No other treatment for the tumour had been given. Postmortem examination revealed obliterative lesions in the intramural coronary vessels and electron-microscopy showed all the features of a cardiomyopathy at cellular level.