Heart transplantation: an approach to treating primary cardiac sarcoma?

• Published in: The Journal of heart and lung transplantation Vol. 21; no. 10; pp. 1135 - 1139
• Main Authors: Überfuhr, Peter, Meiser, Bruno, Fuchs, Alexandra, Schulze, Costas, Reichenspurner, Hermann, Falk, Martin, Weiss, Max, Wintersperger, Bernd, Issels, Rolf, Reichart, Bruno
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: New York, NY Elsevier Inc 01.10.2002; Elsevier Science
• Subjects: Adult; Biological and medical sciences; Chemotherapy, Adjuvant; Female; Heart Neoplasms - surgery; Heart Transplantation; Hemangiopericytoma - drug therapy; Hemangiopericytoma - surgery; Hemangiosarcoma - drug therapy; Hemangiosarcoma - surgery; Humans; Leiomyosarcoma - drug therapy; Leiomyosarcoma - surgery; Medical sciences; Prognosis; Sarcoma - drug therapy; Sarcoma - surgery; Surgery (general aspects). Transplantations, organ and tissue grafts. Graft diseases; Surgery of the heart; Treatment Outcome; Heart; Human; Postoperative; Relapse; Prognosis; Resection; Disease; Sarcoma; Transplantation; Metastasis; Malignant tumor; Homotransplantation; Long term; Chemotherapy; Treatment; Surgery; Primary; Graft; Early; Surgical approach; Soft tissue; Sequence tagged site; Responder
• ISSN: 1053-2498; 1557-3117
• DOI: 10.1016/S1053-2498(02)00409-6

Treating rare, primary cardiac soft-tissue sarcomas (C-STS) with heart transplantation (HTx) is controversial. Conventional tumor resection only partially alleviates the disease, and patients die of local recurrence of the tumor or of distant metastases. Heart transplantation offers the opportunity to eradicate the primary malignancy completely. In our experience of 4 patients with C-STS indicates, HTx followed by post-operative chemotherapy does not affect the long-term outcome. However, pre-operative chemotherapy can regress tumors in chemosensitive C-STS and potentially eradicate early micrometastases. Consecutive HTx for responders may then offer a chance of long-term survival.