摘要
The involvement of the heart in metastatic cancer is a very rare clinical diagnosis with poor prognosis given to the major risk of cardiac failure. They are frequently asymptomatic or symptoms, when present, may be attributed to other causes. The most common, among the latter, are intrathoracic cancers, lymphomas, leukemias, melanoma, and rarely sarcomas. The echocardiography is the gold standard for diagnosis, but scanner and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) can be helpful for determination of exact location and composition of lesions. Cardiac metastases occur generally in advanced stage in poly-metastatic patients. Treatment is often in a palliative strategy but should be discussed in multidisciplinary approach for each case. We report a case of cardiac metastasis occurring in a 47 years old woman, treated for epitheloid sarcoma of the buttock. The aim of this work is to show the rarity of the heart location, describing the epidemiological, clinical, radiological, and prognostic features of these metastases and finally discussing the therapeutic strategy.
The involvement of the heart in metastatic cancer is a very rare clinical diagnosis with poor prognosis given to the major risk of cardiac failure. They are frequently asymptomatic or symptoms, when present, may be attributed to other causes. The most common, among the latter, are intrathoracic cancers, lymphomas, leukemias, melanoma, and rarely sarcomas. The echocardiography is the gold standard for diagnosis, but scanner and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) can be helpful for determination of exact location and composition of lesions. Cardiac metastases occur generally in advanced stage in poly-metastatic patients. Treatment is often in a palliative strategy but should be discussed in multidisciplinary approach for each case. We report a case of cardiac metastasis occurring in a 47 years old woman, treated for epitheloid sarcoma of the buttock. The aim of this work is to show the rarity of the heart location, describing the epidemiological, clinical, radiological, and prognostic features of these metastases and finally discussing the therapeutic strategy.
