Echocardiographic Findings in Cardiac Tumors

ABSTRACT

Primary tumors of the heart are uncommon and their incidence in autopsy series ranges from 0.0017 to 0.28 per cent. About 75 per cent of all cardiac tumors are histologically benign and the remainder are malignant. The majority of benign cardiac tumors are myxoma, comprising 30 to 50 per cent of the total cases in most pathological series and the majority of malignant cardiac tumors are sarcoma. But tumors metastatic to the heart are far more common than primary cardiac tumors and actually appear to be increasing in incidence because of prolonged survival of cancer patients. We experienced six cases of cardiac tumors which were diagnosed with echocardiography 2 hepatocellular carcinoma, 1 malignant melanoma, 1 malignant fibros histiocytoma, 1 lipoma, and 1 myxoma. The mean age of the 3 men and 3 women was 50(range 28 to 71). Two patients with right atrial metastasis from hepatocellular carcinoma and one patient with metastasis from malignant melanoma expired during conservative management. Two benign cardiac tumors(1 lipoma and 1 myxoma) were successfully excised and later follow-up echocardiography showed no signs of tumor recurrence. One patient with biatrial recurrence of malignant histiocytoma was treated medically and expired 4 months later.