Surgical treatment of malignant fibrous histiocytoma in the left atrium and pulmonary veins: report of a case.

This report describes the case of a 16-year-old boy who underwent surgical treatment of a cardiac malignant fibrous histiocytoma (MFH). He was admitted to our hospital for exertional dyspnea. An ultracardiogram (UCG) revealed a tumor about 10cm in diameter, in the left atrium. Extirpation of the left atrial tumor, including the part extending into the pulmonary veins, was performed under cardiopulmonary bypass. Histological examination confirmed a diagnosis of MFH. No adjuvant chemotherapy or radiotherapy was given. While there has been no evidence of local recurrence or metastasis in the 9 months since his operation, strict follow-up is being done by UCG and computed tomography. A few reviews of this entity have been reported; however, they have confused autopsy cases with surgical cases. Therefore, we reviewed only the surgical cases of this type of cardiac tumor documented in the literature. According to our review of the literature, this patient is the youngest among the 42 cases of surgically treated cardiac MFH reported to date.