Cardiac Tumors in Infants and Children: Study of 120 Operated Patients

• Published in: Pediatric cardiology Vol. 34; no. 1; pp. 125 - 128
• Main Authors: Bielefeld, Kyle J., Moller, James H.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: New York Springer-Verlag 01.01.2013; Springer
• Subjects: Adolescent; Cardiac patients; Cardiac Surgery; Cardiac Surgical Procedures - mortality; Cardiac Surgical Procedures - statistics & numerical data; Cardiology; Care and treatment; Child; Child, Preschool; Children; Children's furniture; Health aspects; Heart Neoplasms - mortality; Heart Neoplasms - pathology; Heart Neoplasms - surgery; Humans; Infant; Infant, Newborn; Infants; Medical research; Medicine; Medicine & Public Health; Medicine, Experimental; Mortality; Original Article; Pediatric cardiology; Retrospective Studies; Survival Rate; Treatment Outcome; Tumors; Vascular Surgery; Young Adult; Pediatric cardiology; Cardiac tumors; Cardiac surgery
• ISSN: 0172-0643; 1432-1971
• DOI: 10.1007/s00246-012-0399-0

Cardiac tumors in children are rare, and patient series are limited in size. We report 120 children who underwent surgery to treat a cardiac tumor; the tumor type was known in 108 instances. The patients represented <0.1 % of 130,000 cardiac surgeries performed in children from a multi-institutional data base. The most common tumors and the number of patients were rhabdomyoma ( n  = 42), myxoma ( n  = 28), and fibromas ( n  = 10). The remaining 18 tumors of various types occurred in smaller numbers of patients. Nine patients (7 %) died after surgery. The mean age of death was 14 days, and death was most frequent in patients with fibromas ( n  = 4). Considering the variety of tumors, their varied location in cardiac structures, the patient ages, and the infrequent occurrence in an individual surgeon’s experience, the operative mortality was low.