Secondary malignant tumors of the pericardium.

THOUGH most patients with secondary neoplastic involvement of the heart or pericardium seem to manifest no symptoms or signs of such involvement, a sizable proportion do have actual impairment of cardiac funetion. Refinements in thoracic, and specifically cardiac, surgery, in roentgen therapy, and in the use of isotopic and chemotherapeutic agents have made definite palliation available for metastatic neoplasms of the pericardium. Thus the diagnosis of such funetional involvement assumes an increasing importance. The study to be reported is a retrospective one wherein records of patients with extensive lesions at necropsy were studied in an attempt to correlate clinical and pathologic manifestations of secondary pericardial tumors significant enough to interfere with cardiac function.