Clinical Pathophysiology and Research Highlights of Cardiac Angiosarcoma: Obligation for Immunogenetic Profiling to Understand Their Growth Pattern and Tailor Therapies

Abstract

Cardiac angiosarcoma is the most common malignant tumor of the heart. The typical clinical profile is a young male with 30–50 years of age. Due to varied clinical presentation, it can disguise common cardiovascular disorders, such as pericarditis, congestive cardiac failure, and angina. This can delay the diagnosis, thus allowing the tumor to progress to the advanced stage by the time it is detected. Depending on tumor grade and size, a combination of surgery, chemotherapy, and radiation is advocated. Despite aggressive management, these tumors have a propensity to recur, advance, and metastasize, thereby underscoring the treatment resistance commonly encountered with these tumors. Resultantly, most of the patients are more prone to have shorter survival time, worse clinical outcomes, and grave prognosis. Research efforts should be directed toward decoding the inherent immune-genetic traits of these aggressive tumors so that their rapid progression can be extensively repressed. So, we propounded basic and clinical research studies to grasp the genetic makeup of these tumors so that crafting novel therapeutic modalities for improving prognosis and survival interval in these malignant tumors can materialize.

Keywords

• cardiac tumors
• malignant tumors
• sarcoma
• angiosarcoma
• pericardial tamponade
• bloody pericardial effusion