This is an anthracycline antineoplastic antibiotic.

Indications: acute leukaemias, lymphomas, and a variety of solid tumours.

Cautions: caution in handling - irritant to tissues. Limit total doses administered to 450-550mg/m2 body-surface area in one or more courses as symptomatic and potentially fatal heart failure occurs increasingly commonly above this level. Patients with pre-existing cardiac disease, the elderly, and those who have received myocardial irradiation should be treated cautiously.

Cardiac functions should be monitored during treatment.

Contra-indications: Patients with heart diseases; It should be given with great care in reduced doses in patients with hepatic impairment; pregnancy: & breast feeding.

Side effect: rarely supraventricular tachycardia; cardiomyopathy with cumulative high doses; bone- marrow depression which may be dose-limiting.