Specific causes of death among patients with cardiac sarcoma in the United States-An analysis of The Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results (SEER) Program.

Abstract

Representing 10%-25% of the primary cardiac neoplasms, primary malignant cardiac tumors (PMCT) have a poor prognosis, yet with rare incidence. Constituting more than 50% of the PMCT, cardiac sarcoma has increased not only in incidence over the past five decades but also in severity. Patients with PMCTs, especially sarcomas, have the worst prognosis when compared with other cardiac or extracardiac tumors. This retrospective study was performed using SEER*stat software, latest version 8.3.9.2(5) by accessing seer 18 registries plus data (excl AK) Nov 2020 Sub (2000-2018) for standard mortality ratio (SMR). A total of 235 patients were identified of whom 49.4% were females. Most of our patients were Stage 4 (n = 81) and distant in location (n = 92). The most common treatment method was tumor-directed surgery (n = 164), chemotherapy (n = 146), and radiotherapy (n = 55). Furthermore, other associated cancers with cardiac sarcoma were rare, with ten cases with lung and bronchus cancer (SMR: 37.95, 95% confidence interval [CI]: 18.2, 69.8), four with bone and joints (SMR: 1726.05, 95%CI: 470.2, 4419.3). During a 5-year follow-up, 235 patients died primarily due to cardiac sarcoma (n = 182, 77.4%), other cancers (n = 34, 14.4%), and other noncancerous causes (n = 19, 8%), while the noncancerous causes were attributed mainly to cardiovascular diseases (n = 4, 21%, SMR: 4.95, 95%CI: 1.35, 12.67), septicemia (n = 2, 10.5%, SMR: 41.23, 95%CI: 4.99, 148.95).