Pharmacological cardiotoxicity is a cardiac damage under the action of drugs and it can occur both affecting the performances of the cardiac muscle and by altering the ion channels/currents of the functional cardiac cells, named the cardiomyocytes.
Two distinct case in which can occur are related to anti-cancer drugs and antiarrhythmic drugs. From early observations, some of the first ones which go under the name of anthracycline. It has emerged that such drugs cause a progressive form of heart failure leading to cardiac death. The mechanism of cell injury is thought to account for iron-dependent generation of reactive oxygen species with a spreading of oxidative damage to the cardiomyocytes. On the other hand, related to the antiarrhythmic drugs, the cardiotoxicity is associated to the risk of induce a potential fatal arrhythmias due to an imbalance in the amount of ion currents that flows in/out the cell membrane of the cardiomyocytes.