413 Challenges in the field of cardiac tumours: the surgical experience of Trieste

Abstract

Abstract Aims Cardiac tumors are rare and heterogeneous entities which still remain a diagnostic and therapeutic challenge. The treatment for most cardiac tumors is prompt surgical resection. We sought to provide an overview of surgical results from a series of consecutive patients treated at our tertiary centre during almost a 20-year experience. Methods and results In this single centre study, 55 consecutive patients with cardiac tumor underwent surgical treatment from January 2002 to April 2021. Of these, 42% of patients were male and the mean age was 62 ± 12 years. Almost 27% of patients were symptomatic at the time of the diagnosis, mostly for dyspnoea and palpitations. The most frequent benign cardiac tumor was myxoma (58% of cases), occurring mainly in the left atrium (97%). Pleomorphic sarcoma was the most frequent primary malignant cardiac tumour (7.2% of cases), mainly located in the ventricles (25% left ventricle; 50% right ventricle). In all cases of benign tumors surgery was successful with no relapses. In 50% of cases of pleomorphic sarcoma relapses were observed during follow-up. After a median follow-up of 44 months, 15 (27%) patients died. While malignant tumors presented a limited survival, benign tumours showed a very good prognosis. Conclusions Cardiac tumours require a multidisciplinary work-up to guarantee a prompt diagnosis and appropriate treatment. In our surgical experience, the prognosis of benign tumours was excellent, while malignant tumours had poor outcomes despite radical surgery.