[Primary malignant tumors of the heart. Anatomo-clinical study of 12 cases].

Five of the 12 cardiac sarcomas reviewed in this study were recruited from 7,200 autopsy studies, including 2,980 performed on patients dying from malignant disease (overall incidence of 0.07 p. 100; 0.16 p. 100 in the group with malignant disease). These tumours are fifty times less common than cardiac metastases which were observed in 12.5 p. 100 of patients in the group with malignant disease. The other 7 cases of cardiac sarcoma were recovered from our surgical pathology archives over a 16 years period. The sarcomas were of the following histological types: angiosarcoma (6 cases), rhabdomyosarcoma (3 cases), fibrosarcoma (2 cases) and mesothelioma (1 case). The clinical presentation was very variable. The diagnosis was often made only at surgery or autopsy. The prognosis was very poor, the majority of patients dying of cardiac constriction or visceral metastases, within one year of diagnosis.