Primary cardiac tumors: surgical experience and follow-up.

ABSTRACT

BACKGROUND: Primary cardiac tumors are rare. There are only a few reports of such tumors from India. METHODS AND RESULTS: We report our experience with 34 patients with primary cardiac tumors operated on at our institute between December 1989 and October 2001. The study group comprised 16 males and 18 females with a mean age of 40.05 +/- 13.06 years (range 7-65 years). The predominant symptoms were breathlessness and congestive heart failure. In addition, 1 patient presented with peripheral embolism with impending limb ischemia that necessitated emergency embolectomy. Echocardiography was confirmatory in the diagnosis of all the benign tumors, whereas the malignant tumors were incidentally found during surgery. All the patients survived the operation. Complete resection of the tumor was possible only in benign tumors; however, malignant tumors were partly removed to relieve obstruction. All the excised benign tumors showed no recurrence on a mean follow-up of 54.78 +/- 31.30 months (range 3-108 months). Myxoma was found in 31 patients, left ventricular fibroma in 1, and leiomyosarcoma in 2. Both the patients with malignant tumors developed recurrence postoperatively, and succumbed to extensive distant metastases. CONCLUSIONS: The long-term outcome of surgery was excellent in patients with benign cardiac tumors. However, malignant tumors had an unchanged prognosis, although symptomatic relief was achieved.