When tissue and outcomes are the issue. Cardiac magnetic resonance for patients with suspected cardiac tumours

This editorial refers to 'Cardiovascular magnetic resonance imaging in suspected cardiac tumour: a multicentre outcomes study', by C. Shenoy et al., https://doi.org/10.1093/eurheartj/ehab635. Cardiac tumours represent a rare but important issue in clinical routine in both tertiary and non-tertiary clinical centres. Initial studies based on autopsy data placed them at an incidence of 0.001–0.03 for primary tumours, with benign tumours representing approximately three-quarters of this population.1 Metastatic cancers of the heart, on the other hand, are more frequent, exhibiting a 20- to 40-fold higher incidence than primary cardiac tumours.2 The clinical course of cardiac tumours is highly variable, depending on the type of the primary tumour and the heart structures involved—thus varying from a subclinical course, being diagnosed as an incidental finding, to critical life-threatening conditions due to tumour embolization or limiting outflow obstruction.3 When identifying a possible cardiac mass, two questions usually arise: (i) is...