Interleukin-6 in Patients with Cardiac Myxoma

The relationships between interleukin (IL)-6 and cardiac myxoma remain to be clarified. This article systematically reviewed the IL-6 properties in cardiac myxoma patients based on retrieval of pertinent literature published between 1998 and 2018. Significant differences were found in circulating IL-6 values between preoperation and 1 and 6 months after operation. Preoperative circulating IL-6 correlated significantly with tumour volume (r=0.8552, p=0.003), while there were no significant correlations with maximal tumour dimension (r=0.2443, p=0.190). No correlation was found between circulating IL-6 at 1 and 6 months after tumour resection with either tumour volume or with maximal tumour dimension. The positive rate of immunostaining of IL-6 in cardiac myxoma tissues was 93.3%. Overproduction of IL-6 is responsible for the inflammatory presentations, constitutional symptoms, and recurrence and distal embolisation of cardiac myxoma. Cardiac myxoma could be a cellular source of IL-6 release. Cardiac myxoma resection is an absolute choice of eliminating IL-6 production in these patients.