Primary cardiac tumors are rare in all ages, especially in children, with a reported prevalence range of 0.0017–0.28% in autopsy series. Due to their rarity, the diagnostic and therapeutic pathways reserved to them are usually described by single case reports, leading to the point where a common diagnostic protocol is imperative to obtain a differential diagnosis. The first diagnostic approach is done with transthoracic echocardiogram (TTE), due to its wide availability, low cost, absence of ionizing radiations and non-invasiveness. Several tumors are discovered incidentally and, in many cases, TTE is helpful to determine location, size and anatomical features, playing a key role in the differential diagnosis.
In the last few years, cardiac magnetic resonance imaging (CMR) has had an increased role in the diagnostic pathway of pediatric cardiac masses, due to its high accuracy in characterizing mass tissue properties …

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Autori
Maria Cristina Inserra, Maria Teresa Cannizzaro, Giulia Passaniti, Antonio Celona, Aurelio Secinaro, Davide Curione, Tommaso D’Angelo, Orazio Garretto, Placido Romeo