458 CARDIOVASCULAR MAGNETIC RESONANCE IMAGING IN SUSPECTED CARDIAC MASSES: HISTOLOGICAL CORRELATION AND CLINICAL OUTCOMES

Abstract

Abstract Background Cardiac masses represent a major diagnostic challenge given the difficulty in assessing their nature through imaging examinations. Cardiac Magnetic Resonance (CMR) is a noninvasive key diagnostic tool that can provide important anatomical, functional, and tissue characteristic information. Objectives of the study analyze the clinical and CMR features of patients with benign and malignant tumors and thrombus; asses the accuracy of CMR in comparison with the histologic examination; evaluate the prognostic rule of clinical and CMR features in predicting the primary endpoint of all cause mortality. Methods 92 Patients undergoing CMR for suspected cardiac masses between June 2004 and January 2022 were retrospectively evaluated. Patients with no mass 8 (9%) or pseudomass 11 (12%) were excluded. Clinical, CMR and histological data were collected. Results 73 patients with masses were finally enrolled, 27 (37%) with a diagnosis at CMR of benign tumor, 22 (30%) with malignant tumor, and 24 (33%) with thrombus. Among clinical variables the history of malignancy and smoking were seen in patients with malignant tumors (p>0,02). Among CMR features high size, infiltration, pericardial repeats, pericardial effusion, signal inhomogeneity, First Pass Perfusion and Late Gadolinium Enhancement were associated with malignant masses (p<0.05), while reduced pre-contrast visualization, altered kinetics, low ejection fraction and long-TI were observed in thrombi (p<0.05). CMR was accurate in 91.2% (31/34) of patients in comparison with the histological examination. Accuracy for benign tumors was 91.3% (AUC=0.913), for malignant tumors 94% (AUC=0.940) and for thrombi 83% (AUC=0.833). Patients with thrombus at CMR had similar mortality as those with benign tumor while patients with malignant lesions had higher mortality (HR: 4.98 [95% CI: 1.11-22.2]). Regardless of diagnosis at CMR, age, tumor history, mass size, signal inhomogeneity, presence of FPP, pericardial effusion, and pericardial repeats were found to predict long-term mortality (p<0.05). Conclusions although CMR has high diagnostic accuracy, histologic examination remains the diagnostic gold standard in determining the type of cardiac mass. In addition to playing a key role in the diagnostic process, CMR is useful in predicting the outcome of patients with cardiac masses.