Breast cancer drugs dampen vascular functions by interfering with nitric oxide signaling in endothelium.

Widely used chemotherapeutic breast cancer drugs such as Tamoxifen citrate (TC), Capecitabine (CP) and Epirubicin (EP) are known to cause various cardiovascular side-effects among long term cancer survivors. Vascular modulation warrants nitric oxide (NO) signal transduction, which targets the vascular endothelium. We hypothesize that TC, CP and EP interference with the nitric oxide downstream signaling specifically, could lead to cardiovascular dysfunctions.