Primary pericardial mesothelioma: Report of two cases and review of the literature

Pericardial Mesothelioma with Intracardiac Invasion into the Right Atrium

“…In the majority of cases, the heart is encased in the tumor and the pericardium is extremely thick. The tu mor tissue always adheres and invades the myocardium but the endocardium is usually free [2], In this case, the mesothelioma arose from the pericardium over the right atrium and invaded the right atrial cavity, thus symp toms of pericardial mesothelioma attributed not only to cardiac constriction but also to congestive heart failure due to myocardial infiltration. Mesothelioma involves the heart by continuously invading and locally spread ing to the lungs and the mediastinal lymph nodes.…”

“…The extremely rare occurrence of mesothe lioma is the most common primary malignan cy of the pericardium [1,2]. The few patients whose tumor was discovered during life had always been incorrectly diagnosed initially [3,4].…”

“…Primary pericardial malignancy is ex tremely rare. Pathologically, mesothelioma is the most common one [1,2]. In the majority of cases, the heart is encased in the tumor and the pericardium is extremely thick.…”

Neoplastic Pericardial Disease

“…A search for the primary tumour must be undertaken because metastases to the pericardium are much more common than the primary tumour and furthermore, primary tumors of the heart are far less common than metastatic tumours to the heart. Primary tumours of the pericardium are usually sarcomas or mesotheliomas (27,28). The metastatic cancer is most often carcinoma of the lung (40%), breast (22%), leukemia and lymphoma (15%), sarcomas (3.5%) and melanoma (2.7%) (10).…”

Cardiac tamponade due to ovarian carcinoma

“…Pericardial effusions may be present primarily in maiignancies like mesothelioma (Sytman et al 1971), or secondarily in metastatic diseases like lung cancer (Brown et al 1976), carcinoma of the breast (Logue 1982), leukaemia (Chia et al 1973), melanoma and Hodgkin's disease (Glancy and Roberts 1968). Pericardial effusion due to an ovarian cancer has been observed (Chia et al 1973, Donato et al 1986).…”