Cardiac tumours diagnosis and treatment are a challenge for cardiologists and cardiac surgeons. Malignant cardiac tumors are rare, and most cardiologists and cardiac surgeons see a few cases in their career. These tumors affect mostly young people and often have a dismal prognosis, which can be significantly improved by an appropriate multimodality treatment. The differential diagnosis between the more frequent benign and the rarer malignant tumors (including lymphomas) may be difficult and requires the integration of different imaging techniques (ultrasounds, computed tomography, magnetic resonance imaging, Positron emission tomography) and special expertise of the pathologist. Surgery of solid tumors requires special skills and, in the malignant ones often should be integrated with chemotherapy and possibly radiotherapy for a better outcome. The follow-up must be focused on the early detection of local or distant relapses, which may be frequent.
The goal of this collection is to collect the most updated information about the diagnosis of cardiac tumors (with particular attention to the differential diagnosis between the benign and the malignant ones), recommended therapeutic approaches for cardiac sarcomas and other malignant cardiac tumors, and to suggest to the general community of cardiologists some guidelines to suspect and approach this rare and dreadful cardiac disease.
Specific themes we would like contributors to address include, but are not limited to:
• Epidemiology, clinical presentation. (Review of the literature)
• Pathology: sarcomas and diagnostic challenges, lymphomas, other rare tumors involving the heart. Role of pathology in driving therapies. (case series, review of the literature)
• Echocardiography: when suspect a malignant cardiac tumor, the role of transesophageal, 3-dimensional and contrast echocardiography (case series and review of the literature)
• Use of different imaging techniques (radiology, nuclear medicine) in the differential diagnosis, staging, planning of therapies and follow-up (case series and review of the literature)
• Surgery: challenges in the surgical approach and results (case series, review of the literature)
• Chemotherapy: old and new drugs. (Review)
• Radiotherapy: use of different techniques to overcome the problems of a moving target(case series, review of the literature)
• How to plan a multimodality therapy (case series, review of the literature)
• How to plan a follow-up: times, methods (review, personal experience)
• How to build a cardio-oncology team for cardiac tumors
Cardiac tumours diagnosis and treatment are a challenge for cardiologists and cardiac surgeons. Malignant cardiac tumors are rare, and most cardiologists and cardiac surgeons see a few cases in their career. These tumors affect mostly young people and often have a dismal prognosis, which can be significantly improved by an appropriate multimodality treatment. The differential diagnosis between the more frequent benign and the rarer malignant tumors (including lymphomas) may be difficult and requires the integration of different imaging techniques (ultrasounds, computed tomography, magnetic resonance imaging, Positron emission tomography) and special expertise of the pathologist. Surgery of solid tumors requires special skills and, in the malignant ones often should be integrated with chemotherapy and possibly radiotherapy for a better outcome. The follow-up must be focused on the early detection of local or distant relapses, which may be frequent.
The goal of this collection is to collect the most updated information about the diagnosis of cardiac tumors (with particular attention to the differential diagnosis between the benign and the malignant ones), recommended therapeutic approaches for cardiac sarcomas and other malignant cardiac tumors, and to suggest to the general community of cardiologists some guidelines to suspect and approach this rare and dreadful cardiac disease.
Specific themes we would like contributors to address include, but are not limited to:
• Epidemiology, clinical presentation. (Review of the literature)
• Pathology: sarcomas and diagnostic challenges, lymphomas, other rare tumors involving the heart. Role of pathology in driving therapies. (case series, review of the literature)
• Echocardiography: when suspect a malignant cardiac tumor, the role of transesophageal, 3-dimensional and contrast echocardiography (case series and review of the literature)
• Use of different imaging techniques (radiology, nuclear medicine) in the differential diagnosis, staging, planning of therapies and follow-up (case series and review of the literature)
• Surgery: challenges in the surgical approach and results (case series, review of the literature)
• Chemotherapy: old and new drugs. (Review)
• Radiotherapy: use of different techniques to overcome the problems of a moving target(case series, review of the literature)
• How to plan a multimodality therapy (case series, review of the literature)
• How to plan a follow-up: times, methods (review, personal experience)
• How to build a cardio-oncology team for cardiac tumors
