Breast cancer in the heart

We present a case of a 46-year-old woman who presented to our institution with a history of quadrantectomy and a current progressive dyspnea. Multislice computed tomography of the heart and coronary arteries was performed with standard protocol. The investigation demonstrated a hypodense mass infiltrating the interventricular septum, the cardiac apex and the right ventricular chamber. The mass also surrounded the left anterior descending coronary artery without any sign of occlusion. Cardiac computed tomography is performed in the follow-up of almost all cancer patients. Therefore, we expect that the increased survival of patients with advanced stages of cancer will lead to more frequent encounters with this kind of finding in routine clinical investigations. J Cardiovasc Med 10:423-424 (C) 2009 Italian Federation of Cardiology.