In the Federal Republic of Germany, no data existed regarding the frequency of open heart surgery for excision of cardiac neoplasms. Therefore, a standard questionnaire concerning heart tumors was sent to all 77 German heart centers performing cardiac surgery. Data from 65 of the 77 heart centers (= 84%) are finally available: 187 patients were operated upon for myxomas, only 44 upon for non-myxomatous cardiac tumors (28 of them with malignant primary or secondary lesions of the heart). In 1996, 0.32% (231/72,763) of all surgical procedures using a heart-lung machine (registered 72,763 of 87,372 total) were aimed at excision of heart tumors. Based on surgical data, the incidence of solely the primary tumors of the heart in Germany is at least 3 per million population per year (253 tumors/81.814 million inhabitants). Even if small tumors are asymptomatic and remain undetected, today, the majority of primary tumors of the heart will be revealed by echocardiography, computer tomography, and magnetic resonance imaging, and these patients are usually referred to operation. Thus, in Germany, about 0.3% of operations using a heart-lung machine were performed for cardiac tumors-among these, myxomas are clearly predominant.

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