Appraisal of histogenesis of cardiac myxoma: our experience of 78 cases and review of literature.

Cardiac tumours are uncommon. Of these, myxomas have generated significant interest, not only because it is the commonest cardiac neoplasm but also because of controversial theories regarding its histogenesis. We encountered 78 cases of cardiac myxoma in our centre between 1976 and 1997. These included 73 sporadic cases and five cases from a single family of mother, daughter and son. The familial cases had recurrent, biatrial cardiac myxomas. Histopathologic analysis, immunohistochemical study, electron microscopic evaluation and DNA ploidy analysis done in some of these cases revealed evidence in support of the neoplastic nature of this entity. This communication sums up our observations and literature related to the histogenesis of cardiac myxoma.