Metastatic hematolymphoid tumors to heart and the diagnostic and therapeutic dilemma: a cases series

Introduction: Cardiac neoplasms are rare, described in 0.01 to 0.1% of autopsies.However, metastases to the heart are not as uncommon as one might assume.Secondary involvement of the pericardium, myocardium, great vessels, or coronary arteries has been reported in 0.7 and 3.5% of general autopsies and up to 9.1% of autopsies of patients with known malignancies.Objective: To determine the sociodemographic, clinical and therapeutic findings of patients with hematolymphoid tumors metastatic to the heart.Materials and methods: The sociodemographic and clinical characteristics of the patients are described, along with their clinical outcomes.A review of the complete medical records, laboratory results, and diagnostic images was performed, And a review of the literature was carried out in the main databases: PubMed, Scopus, Google Scholar, Web of Science, EMBASE, and Scielo, in Spanish and English.This article follows the 2016 CARE guidelines.Results: We present four clinical cases of hematolymphoid neoplasms in the heart.All four patients presented to the hospital due to progressive dyspnea.Histopathology reported a B-cell precursor lymphoblastic lymphoma, high-grade pleomorphic angiosarcoma -high-grade malignant fibrous histiocytoma, non-Hodgkin lymphoma, and a high-grade angiosarcoma.All cases required surgery for cardiovascular complications (such as cardiac tamponade or mass effect in the involved structures) and chemotherapy, and all patients had a good clinical outcome.Conclusions: Hematolymphoid tumors of the heart are rare.However, they must be considered within the differential diagnosis in order to diagnose and treat them promptly, since they can cause life-threatening complications.