Cardiac metastasis in endometrial carcinoma is rare but increasing, highlighting the need for early detection (e.g., by PET-CT) to allow for aggressive combined therapy.
Rapid progression despite chemotherapy in cardiac endometrial metastasis warrants caution in treatment planning; leaves open the value of early detection strategies.
We report the case of an 83-year-old woman that presented with progressive dyspnoea due to an intraluminal right atrial metastasis of an endometrial carcinoma that had been diagnosed 4 years earlier. Treatment up to that point consisted of an hysterectomy and resection and radiation of local recurrences. Follow-up had been interpreted as negative, despite a PET-CT 8 months before presentation which had shown increased FDG uptake in the right atrium, but was unfortunately considered benign. After confirmation of metastasis, first-line chemotherapy was started. However, due to poor tolerance and rapid symptom progression, chemotherapy had to be stopped early. She died 2 months later. Cardiac metastasis in endometrial carcinoma is rare. However, the incidence is increasing simultaneously with prolonged cancer survival. Because advances in systemic and radiotherapy now allow curative treatment, more focus should be put on early detection, for example by PET-CT. This way aggressive combined therapy can be started before the burden of cardiac metastasis does not allow it any longer.
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Droogné et al. (2023) studied this question.
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