Long-term disease-free survival of patients with primary cardiac lymphoma treated with systemic chemotherapy and radiotherapy

Primary cardiac lymphoma (PCL) is a rare disease entity with only a few reported cases in Korea. In this paper, we report a case of PCL in a 59-year-old man presenting with chest pain. Diffuse large B-cell lymphoma was diagnosed through a cardiac catheterization-assisted percutaneous endomyocardial biopsy, and there was no evidence of extracardiac involvement of the lymphoma.The patient had a complete clinical response after systemic chemotherapy with a rituximab, cyclophosphamide, doxorubicin, vincristine, and prednisolone (R-CHOP) regimen and additional post-chemotherapeutic radiation therapy. The patient experienced a long-term disease-free survival of over 4 years. However, he received coronary artery bypass graft surgery due to an acute myocardial infarction that occurred 3 years after the completion of the radiation therapy. Although the addition of radiation therapy to the treatment is thought to decrease the risk of relapse in patients with PCL, a careful and thorough consideration of the potential complications of radiation therapy, particularly with respect to cardiac complications, should be considered.