Outcomes after surgical resection of primary cardiac sarcomas

Aim. To assess the immediate and long-term results of surgical treatment of patients with primary cardiac sarcomas. Methods. In the period from 2013 to 2020, five patients (two men and three women) of different age groups (from 10 to 54 years old) with primary cardiac sarcomas various localisations had been operated at our hospital. In all the patients, the operation was performed from the median sternotomy with cardiopulmonary bypass, normothermia and crystalloid cardioplegia. Results. The average age of the patients was 32 ± 12 years. Two patients had leiomyosarcoma (of right atrium and pulmonary artery), two had angiosarcoma of the right atrium and one was diagnosed with pleomorphic left atrial sarcoma. Only in two patients, the lesion was limited to one chamber; in other cases, the tumour exhibited aggressive infiltrative growth and invasion into the inferior vena cava, myocardium of the left ventricle, contralateral cardiac chambers, pericardium and parietal pleura. Three patients underwent radical surgery with R0 resection, two others underwent cytoreductive surgery with R2 resection owing to the prevalence of the process and the technical impossibility of radical resection. We did not record any in-hospital mortality. Postoperative chemotherapy was administered to four patients. At follow up, (median 18.8 ± 11.7 month), one patient was alive (follow-up 35 months) and was undergoing chemotherapy owing to local recurrence of the disease. One patient with pulmonary leiomyosarcoma underwent re-operation because of local recurrence 1 year after the primary surgery. All the patients died because of disease progression. The average postoperative survival duration in those who died was 14.8 ± 8.1 month. Conclusion. Despite effective early results, long-term survival and tumour-free course were disappointing owing to the initial prevalence of the disease course, the complexity of surgical procedures and the impossibility of radical resection in two cases. However, a multimodality treatment of this pathology, including radical surgical resection of the tumour (R0) along with the modern neoadj'uvant and adj'uvant chemotherapy, and in some cases, radiotherapy, can improve the survival duration.