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Primary cardiac tumours

Dr Yuranga Weerakkody and Dr Frank Gaillard et al.

Primary cardiac tumours are uncommon, and comprise only a small minority of all tumour that involve the heart: most are mediastinal or lung tumours which extend through the pericardium and into the heart, or metastases ¹.

Epidemiology

Primary cardiac tumours have an estimated autopsy prevalence of 0.001 - 0.03% ².

Pathology

Primary cardiac tumours can then be divided into:

benign cardiac tumours : 60-75% ^1,4
- cardiac myxoma : most common in adults
- cardiac lipoma (≈ 10% ⁴, second most common in adults ⁶)
- cardiac rhabdomyoma : most common in children
- papillary fibroelastoma
- cardiac fibroma
- cardiac haemangioma
- pericardial teratoma (can rapidly grow despite being benign) ^7-8
  - fetal pericardial teratoma
malignant cardiac tumours
- sarcomas account for 25 % of all cardiac tumours ^2,6
  - cardiac angiosarcoma : most common malignant primary cardiac tumour ³
  - primary cardiac osteosarcoma
- malignant fibrous histiocytoma (MFH) of heart
- cardiac haemangiopericytoma
- primary cardiac lymphoma
- pericardial mesothelioma

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