[Benign tumors of the heart]

Benign tumors of the heart are rare and their symptomatology often remains ambiguous. Nevertheless, they are an important differential diagnosis of valvular heart disease, cardiac insufficiency, ventricular and supraventricular rhythm disturbances, conduction defects, syncopes, and arterial or pulmonary embolism. Furthermore, they can mimic an infective, malignant or immunological disease. For the first time, at the beginning of the 1950s, the clinically suspected diagnosis of a cardiac tumor was confirmed by angiocardiography; now, after the technical evolution of ultrasound, computer-tomography and nuclear magnetic resonance imaging over the past 30 years, the intravitam diagnosis is made more often and patients can be surgically treated.