Comprehensive Overview Of Heart Cancer

How It's Diagnosed

The diagnosis of malignant tumors in the heart has a high reliance on an extensive combination of diagnostic imaging techniques. Cardiac computed tomography scans, echocardiography or heart ultrasound, positron emission tomography, and cardiovascular magnetic resonance are used to aid in the diagnosis of heart cancer. These forms of diagnostic imaging technology help physicians determine the exact size of a patient's intracardiac mass, the amount of growth and metastasis of the mass, the degree of invasion the mass has in the myocardial tissue, and the location of the cardiac chamber that contains the intracardiac tumor. In patients who have exceptionally rare cases of heart cancer, a definitive tissue biopsy may be performed when the diagnostic imaging methods are unable to provide an accurate characterization of the malignant mass in the heart. There can be challenges in overcoming the safety of performing a heart tissue biopsy on some patients, which complicates the diagnostic process significantly in such cases.

Reveal the available treatment options next.