Diagnosis and treatment of right ventricular metastasis from esophageal squamous cell carcinoma: An unusual case report and a literature review

Abstract

Background: Right ventricular metastasis from esophageal squamous cell carcinoma is very rare and only seen in few case reports. Patients with cardiac metastasis have a poor prognosis with a median survival period of 4 weeks due to the lack of standardized and effective treatment guidelines. Therefore, we aimed to clarify the feature and treatment of cardiac metastasis through literature review and reporting of an unusual case. Case: We reported a case of a 67 years-old man diagnosed as right ventricular metastasis from esophageal squamous cell with the help of echocardiography and pathological biopsy. Moreover, the patient survival period reached an astonishing 6 months, which far exceeded 4 weeks reported in previous literature. Methods: We searched for relevant literature in the past decade on PUBMED and summarized the content of the literature to better clarify cardiac metastasis. Conclusion: Cardiac metastatic likely to occur in the elderly and in the right side of heart which related to hemodynamics. Surgical resection of metastatic tumors is the main treatment method, but patients usually die during the perioperative period due to its complexity and difficulty. Meanwhile, we have proposed some potentially effective treatment measures.