Hepatoma with cardiac metastasis: an advanced cancer requiring advanced treatment.
OBJECTIVE
To investigate the clinical and pathologic findings, and to discuss the pathophysiology of hepatocellular carcinoma with cardiac metastasis.


METHODS
Eight hepatoma patients with cardiac metastasis, who were treated by surgical excision from 1993 to 2006, were retrospectively studied. Detailed clinical parameters were analyzed.


RESULTS
Of those eight patients, two (25%) were women and six (75%) were men, with the mean age of 50 years (range, 40-70 years). The presentations included: asymptomatic (75%), heart failure (25%), and pulmonary embolism (12.5%). All lesions involved the right atrium, and extended to the lung (12.5%), inferior vena cava (25%), and left atrium (12.5%). The level of tumor marker, alpha-fetal protein, was not correlated with the severity of metastasis or disease prognosis. Moreover, the availably estimated doubling time was less than 3 mo. The pathological findings included variable hemorrhage and necrosis. The survival time following surgery also varied from one month to more than 30 mo.


CONCLUSIONS
Hepatoma metastasis to the heart was detected in all eight patients. This study demonstrates that surgery might help the outcome in such cases.
The First Cardiovascular Division, Department of Internal Medicine, Chang Gung Memorial Hospital, 199 Tun-Hwa North Road, Taipei 105, Taiwan, China.
Yu-Sheng
YS
Lin
Shih-Ming
SM
Jung
Feng-Chun
FC
Tsai
Chun-Nan
CN
Yeh
Tzu-Fang
TF
Shiu
Hsueh-Hua
HH
Wu
Pyng-Jing
PJ
Lin
Pao-Hsien
PH
Chu
D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D006528:Carcinoma, Hepatocellular / Q000473:pathology*; D005260:Female; D006338:Heart Neoplasms / Q000473:pathology / Q000556:secondary* / Q000601:surgery; D006801:Humans; D008113:Liver Neoplasms / Q000473:pathology*; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D012189:Retrospective Studies; D000509:alpha-Fetoproteins / Q000032:analysis
D000509:alpha-Fetoproteins