Primary cardiac sarcomas: Treatment strategies

Area of Science:

• Cardiology
• Surgical Oncology
• Oncology

Background:

• Primary cardiac sarcoma is a rare and aggressive malignancy.
• Effective management requires a specialized, multidisciplinary approach.

Purpose of the Study:

• To present short- and long-term outcomes for patients with primary cardiac sarcoma.
• To evaluate survival rates following surgical intervention.

Main Methods:

• Retrospective review of a prospectively collected database of 122 primary cardiac sarcoma cases (1998-2021).
• Analysis of patient demographics, surgical factors, and perioperative data.
• Assessment of all-cause mortality at 1, 3, and 5 years post-diagnosis and post-surgery.

Main Results:

• The most common locations were the left atrium (40.2%) and right atrium (32.0%).
• Angiosarcoma (38.5%) was the most frequent histological type.
• 1, 3, and 5-year survival from diagnosis was 88.4%, 43.15%, and 27.8%; from surgery, it was 57.1% and 24.5% at 1 and 3 years, respectively.
• No significant difference in survival was observed between the 1998-2011 and 2011-2021 eras.

Conclusions:

• Multidisciplinary cardiac tumor teams can achieve reasonable outcomes for primary cardiac sarcoma.
• Mortality rates have not improved, likely due to the systemic nature of the disease.