Purpose: To review the surgical experience of our group in the treatment of primary cardiac tumors, during a 10 year period beginning January 1985 till December 1994. Material and Methods: From a total of 2268 cardiac surgeries with the aid of extracorporeal circulation performed during this 10 year period, there were 6 cases of intracavitary tumor resection, an incidence of 0.26%. Three were myxomas of the left atrium, 1 papillary fibroelastoma of the mitral valve, 1 rhabdomyoma of the left ventricule and 1 fibroma of the left ventricle. Three patients presented systemic embolism and the other three congestive heart failure. The diagnosis was confirmed by echocardiography (5 cases) and angiography (all 6 cases). Results: All patients had uneventful revovery, except 1, with atrial myxoma, who developed mediastinitis and sepsys, dying on the 14th. post-operative day and becoming the unique hospital death. The follow up obtained in 4 patients with mean duration of 49 ± 36.8 months (range, 15 to 111 months) showed that all of them were in functional class I (NYHA) and with no evidence of recurrence. Conclusions: Cardiac tumors are rare, easily diagnosed "as long as you think of them" (Soma Weiss), most of them bening and have a favorable outcome with surgical resection.
Heart neoplasms; Myxoma; Fibroma; Rhabdomyoma; Heart atrium; Mitral valve; Heart ventricle; Heart neoplasms
