Metastatic cardiovascular tumors are more frequent than primary tumors of the heart and great vessels, with cardiac myxoma being the most frequent primary cardiac tumor.
This review proposes a new clinical classification for cardiovascular tumors and highlights that metastatic tumors are more common than primary ones, with myxoma being the most frequent primary tumor.
Tumors of the heart and the great vessels are very rare disease, and there are many disorders such as tumors originated from the heart and great vessels, metastatic tumors, and tumor-like lesions which do not fit into the usual concept of tumor or neoplasm; thus, it is very difficult to classify these tumors. We proposed a new classification of cardiovascular tumors for clinical use based on the accumulated biological analyses and clinical data of the reported literatures and our own study as benign tumors, malignant tumors, ectopic hyperplasia/ectopic tumors/others, and tumors of great vessels, with reference to the series of Atlas of tumor pathology of the Armed Forces Institute of Pathology and the recent World Health Organization classification of cardiac tumors issued in 2004. More than 50 disorders have been reported as tumors originated from the cardiovascular system, and various metastatic tumors from nearby organs, distant lesions, and intravascular extension tumors to the heart were reported. Based on the new classification, we reviewed epidemiology and incidence of cardiovascular tumors. Metastatic tumors are more frequent than tumors originated from the heart and great vessels, and cardiac myxoma is the most frequent tumors in all cardiac tumors.
Amano et al. (Mon,) conducted a review in Cardiovascular tumors and tumor-like lesions. Cardiovascular tumors was evaluated on Incidence and classification of cardiovascular tumors. Metastatic cardiovascular tumors are more frequent than primary tumors of the heart and great vessels, with cardiac myxoma being the most frequent primary cardiac tumor.