Dr. Meyer on Standard Treatment Options in Cardiac Angiosarcoma

Christian Frederick Meyer, MD, PhD, MS, assistant professor of oncology, Department of Oncology, Sidney Kimmel Comprehensive Cancer Center, Johns Hopkins Medicine, discusses standard treatment options in cardiac angiosarcoma.

As with most sarcomas, several treatment options can be utilized, including surgery, radiation, chemotherapy, and other specialized treatments, Meyer says. For cardiac angiosarcoma, surgery should be part of an eligible patient’s treatment plan because resection provides the best chance for cure or prolonged life. However, surgery alone is typically not curative because patients are often left with residual microscopic disease after surgery.

As such, most patients with cardiac angiosarcoma also require chemotherapy to eliminate some of the residual disease. Moreover, cardiac angiosarcoma tends to be an innately aggressive disease that can metastasize before scans will pick up on it; chemotherapy is also given to address that aspect of the disease, Meyer concludes.