Surgical excision is recommended for symptomatic patients, those undergoing other cardiac surgeries, or those with large and highly mobile cardiac papillary fibroelastomas to prevent embolic events.
CPFs are generally small and single, occur most often on valvular surfaces, and may be mobile, resulting in embolization. Because of the potential for embolic events, symptomatic patients, patients undergoing cardiac surgery for other lesions, and those with highly mobile and large CPFs should be considered for surgical excision.
Sun et al. (2001) studied this question.