Surgical excision of a hemangioendothelioma of the left ventricle

Primary intracardiac neoplasms are most commonly histologically benign with only 30% exhibiting signs of malignancy. Metastatic tumors of the heart are 30 times more common than primary cardiac tumors. Patients with intracardiac masses may present with dyspnea on exertion, thromboembolic events, pericarditis, arrhythmias, or congestive heart failure. In many, however, the diagnosis is made upon discovering a murmur in an otherwise asymptomatic patient. Hemangioendotheliomas are very rare tumors of the heart characterized by capillarysized vessels lined by rounded and often multilayered endothelial cells. Cardiac muscle cells are found compressed between proliferating vascular channels. We present a patient with this unusual cardiac tumor with no previous cardiac history and a new systolic murmur. (C) 2002 by The Society of Thoracic Surgeons.