Pazopanib in Primary Cardiac Angiosarcoma of the Right Atrium: A Case Report

Abstract

Primary heart tumors are an extremely rare oncological entity with primary cardiac sarcomas usually representing 20% of all primary cardiac tumorous lesions [Shanmugam: Eur J Cardiothorac Surg 2006;29: 925–932; Orlandi et al.: J Thorac Oncol 2010;5: 1483–1489]. Angiosarcoma is the most prevalent histology and despite a multidisciplinary approach tends to have a dismal prognosis [Shanmugam: Eur J Cardiothorac Surg 2006;29: 925–932; Fury et al.: Cancer J 2005;11: 241–247]. Based on the prevailing literature, we report a 48-year-old woman diagnosed with primary metastatic cardiac angiosarcoma who showed a severe hypersensitivity reaction to conventional chemotherapy with taxanes but an excellent response to treatment with the multitargeted receptor tyrosine kinase inhibitor pazopanib.

Keywords

• Cardiac sarcoma
• Angiosarcoma
• Soft tissue sarcoma
• Right atrium
• Pazopanib