Abstract
The objective of our study is to give an overview of occurrence of neoplasms of the heart for patients treated at Rikshospitalet-Radiumhospitalet HF between 1989 and 2005. We have also reviewed malignant heart tumours registered by The Norwegian Cancer Register from 1953 to 2005 and recordings about anonymous-registered patients with diagnoses of primary and secondary heart tumours from The Norwegian Patient Register between 1995 and 2004.
We assume that the material is representative for the whole of Norway and that the occurrence and tumour characteristics do not differ from international studies on this field.
A total of 75 patients with heart tumours were registered at Rikshospitalet-Radiumhospitalet, 68 with primary heart neoplasms and 7 with myocardial metastasis from various neoplasms. During the last 52 years few primary malignant heart tumours were registered in Norway, about 4 per decade or 0,11 per million per year.
Our study confirms a non-significant overweight of women getting myxomas, the most common benign tumour in the heart, and that most of the myxomas arise from the left atrium.
Benign heart tumours can imitate many different illnesses and give a variety of clinical manifestations. The clinical picture with cardiac and vascular symptoms corresponds with other studies. We have found a clear association between raised sedementation rate and presence of myxoma.