With more than a decade of experience as a dental practitioner, Dr. George Hatzigiannis is a respected presence in the Boston dental community. Focusing on oral and maxillofacial surgery, Dr. George Hatzigiannis has published extensively in this field. Among the papers he co-authored is “Undifferentiated Cardiac Sarcoma Metastatic to the Maxilla: Report of a Case.”
The paper looks at primary cardiac sarcomas, which are aggressive, rare, malignant mesenchymal neoplasms. A form of abnormal growth associated with cancer, the condition is extremely difficult to counter. While comprising a very small percentage of the heart’s primary neoplasms, the tumors are adept at metastasis and usually invade vital anatomic structures that lie adjacent.
The paper concerns a case of lesions impacting a patient’s molars and premolars. The patient’s recent medical history was important since he had been diagnosed with undifferentiated high-grade sarcoma of the left atrium, which had metastasized into the brain.
Surgical resection had removed the primary tumor, but the patient had suffered a cerebrovascular accident in the immediate postoperative period and received medication and radiation treatment. The core interest of this case is in the links between oral and maxillofacial pathologies and cardiac sarcoma conditions that are more common in other parts of the body.
