Overall approaches to cardiac tumors: Still an unsolved enigma?

Abstract

Cardiac tumors are neoplasms involving heart structures at any level, meaning the myocardium, valves, and cardiac chambers. When considering cardiac masses, it is not uncommon for surgeons to be surprised when they diagnose one. The real incidence of this complex group of diseases has been explored only after cardiac diagnostic tools became more appropriate. Despite differential diagnosis being relevant, surgical indication is usually requested for all malignant cardiac tumors and also for many types of benign tumors. The development of cardiac imaging techniques, therefore, has been the key point for a better understanding of the history of cardiac tumors and especially of the relevance of surgical indication in such conditions. Systematic and combined applications of echocardiography, cardiac computed tomography and magnetic resonance allow in the majority of case a clear definition of the nature of a newly discovered cardiac mass. The presence of a Li-Fraumeni syndrome seems to be the trigger aspect in accelerating the propensity of developing a cardiac tumor. Despite the revolutionary usefulness of the cardiac imaging techniques available, it is still considered a hazard to diagnose a malignant cardiac mass just with radiological imaging; the mainstay of the final diagnosis stands in surgical excision of the mass and histopathological report.

Keywords: Cardiac surgery; Cardiac tumor; Differential diagnosis; Li-Fraumeni syndrome; Pre-neoplastic syndrome.