Cure Alveolar Soft Part Sarcoma International (iCureASPS)

As per the article :

People with ASPS or cardiac sarcoma may experience the following symptoms or signs. Sometimes, people with these types of tumors do not show any of these symptoms. Or, these symptoms may be caused by a medical condition that is not cancer. If you are concerned about a symptom or sign on this list, please talk with your doctor.


http://www.cancer.net/cancer-types/sarc ... -and-signs

“Heart evaluation. A heart evaluation, including an electrocardiogram (EKG or ECG) and an echocardiogram (ECHO), will look for structural abnormalities in the organ and motion of the walls of the heart. This evaluation is used to diagnose cardiac sarcoma.”

Numerous chest CT with the contrast Ivan had, failed to diagnose his cardiac mets. After they were suspected, he was referred to the specialized Cardiac center we have in Vancouver, they have some special cardiac MRI unit. He is followed with this special scan ever since then, for accurate evaluation of his heart. Echo was evaluated to see if it might be enough to use for surveillance but was decided to be not accurate enough. His initial symptoms were palpitations at rest and tachycardia.

Hi Olga and Ivan ,
How’s Ivan doing with the follow ups after his heart tumors ?
What you are saying is it takes a specialized cardiac unit to detect a heart tumor initially?
https://cureasps.org/forum/viewtopic.php?p=35#p35

Yes,his heart metastases were only clearly visualized on the cardiac MRI. This is some kind of specialized MRI unit that is available at the large cardiac surgery hospital in Vancouver.
Echocardiography or what commonly referred as Echo is somewhat helpful but not specific enough.

The imaging modalities, advantages and pitfalls are reviewed in this article:

Metastasis to the Heart: A Radiologic Approach to Diagnosis With Pathologic Correlation
https://www.ajronline.org/doi/10.2214/AJR.16.16148