Heart transplantation: an approach to treating primary cardiac sarcoma?
Treating rare, primary cardiac soft-tissue sarcomas (C-STS) with heart transplantation (HTx) is controversial. Conventional tumor resection only partially alleviates the disease, and patients die of local recurrence of the tumor or of distant metastases. Heart transplantation offers the opportunity to eradicate the primary malignancy completely. In our experience of 4 patients with C-STS indicates, HTx followed by post-operative chemotherapy does not affect the long-term outcome. However, pre-operative chemotherapy can regress tumors in chemosensitive C-STS and potentially eradicate early micrometastases. Consecutive HTx for responders may then offer a chance of long-term survival.
Uberfuhr
Peter
P
Division of Cardiac Surgery, Klinikum Grosshadern, University of Munich, Munich, Germany. peter.ueberfuhr@hch.med.uni-muenchen.de
Meiser
Bruno
B
Fuchs
Alexandra
A
Schulze
Costas
C
Reichenspurner
Hermann
H
Falk
Martin
M
Weiss
Max
M
Wintersperger
Bernd
B
Issels
Rolf
R
Reichart
Bruno
B
D000328:Adult; D017024:Chemotherapy, Adjuvant; D005260:Female; D006338:Heart Neoplasms / Q000601:surgery*; D016027:Heart Transplantation; D006393:Hemangiopericytoma / Q000188:drug therapy / Q000601:surgery; D006394:Hemangiosarcoma / Q000188:drug therapy / Q000601:surgery; D006801:Humans; D007890:Leiomyosarcoma / Q000188:drug therapy / Q000601:surgery; D011379:Prognosis; D012509:Sarcoma / Q000188:drug therapy / Q000601:surgery*; D016896:Treatment Outcome