Primary tumors and cysts of the heart and pericardium

Our plain-English summary of Primary tumors and cysts of the heart and pericardium, by H.A. McAllister (Current Problems in Cardiology, 1979).

The study

• Author: H.A. McAllister
• Journal: Current Problems in Cardiology
• Published: 1979;4(2):1-51
• Type of article: Review
• Cited by: 141 articles, as counted by NIH iCite
• Read it: PubMed · Publisher

In plain English

This article was a review of primary tumors and cysts of the heart and pericardium (the sac around the heart). It drew on 533 cases at the Armed Forces Institute of Pathology (AFIP) and on published reports. It was not a study of asbestos and reported no exposure histories. The author wrote that across all ages the most common tumor was the myxoma, a benign growth, making up 25% of all tumors and cysts. About one fourth of all cases were malignant, and 15% of those were mesotheliomas. The AFIP series included 19 patients who died of mesothelioma of the pericardium, aged 17 to 83 years. The author wrote that most such tumors spread over the pericardium and encase the heart, and that there is no specific treatment. The author also stated that there was no evidence linking the isolated pericardial mesothelioma to asbestosis. Separately, the article described a different tumor, mesothelioma of the atrioventricular node, in 12 AFIP patients. The author called that tumor always benign.

We wrote this plain-English summary from the full article with the help of AI, and a second AI model checked each sentence against the article. It is not the authors' wording; the abstract and the article are their own account.

What the study did and found

• Design: Review of the author's institution's case collection (AFIP) of primary heart and pericardial tumors and cysts, combined with discussion of published literature
• Who was studied: 533 primary tumors and cysts of the heart and pericardium in the AFIP collection, in infants, children and adults; dates of collection not stated
• Exposure: No exposure was studied. The only reference to asbestos in the body of the article is the author's statement that no evidence links isolated pericardial mesothelioma to asbestosis
• Main results:
  • Across all age groups, myxomas made up 40% of benign cardiac tumors and 25% of all tumors and cysts of the heart and pericardium
  • About one fourth of all tumors and cysts were malignant. Of the malignant ones, one third were angiosarcomas, 20% rhabdomyosarcomas, 15% mesotheliomas and 10% fibrosarcomas
  • Findings were available for 19 AFIP patients who died of mesothelioma of the pericardium
  • The pericardial mesothelioma patients in the AFIP series were aged 17 to 83 years
  • The author described most pericardial mesotheliomas as spreading over both layers of the pericardium and encasing the heart
  • Mesothelioma of the atrioventricular (AV) node, a separate tumor, was found in 12 AFIP patients aged 11 months to 71 years. The author described it as always benign
• The authors' conclusion: The author stated that there is no specific treatment for pericardial mesothelioma

Topics

Medical terms in this study, explained in our Lexicon: Pericardium.

Related studies

• Surgical pathology of primary cardiac and pericardial tumors — C. Basso, M. Valente, et al. (1997)
• Surgery for primary intrapericardial tumors in adults — S. Taguchi, R. Yozu (2013)
• Unusual primary tumors of the heart — T.J. Vander Salm (2000)
• Neoplastic Pericardial Disease — J.J. Maleszewski, N.S. Anavekar (2017)
• Occult primary cardiac lymphomas causing unexpected/sudden death or acute heart failure — A. De Martino, F. Del Re, et al. (2020)
• Cardiac masses: assessment by MR imaging — J.T. Lund, R.L. Ehman, et al. (1989)

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