Some new concepts of cardiac myxoma

The surgical treatment of cardiac myxoma in 211 consecutive cases (single tumor in 204 cases, multiple in 7, and recurrent in 3) from Dec. 1975 through Dec. 1993 was reviewed. Totally 228 myxomas were found and 215 operations performed. Data from this series and literature show that there were some complicated cases so that cardiac myxoma can not be simply regarded as a benign tumor only, but may be classified into two kinds: simple (or sporadic) cardiac myxoma and complicated cardiac myxoma. The latter includes myxoma complex, familial myxoma, and myxoma from multicenters. The clinical features, main points of diagnosis and surgery are concisely summarized.