Myxomas are the most common type of benign cardiac tumor. The most frequent clinical presentations are symptoms resulting from atrioventricular valve obstruction or systemic embolization. Coronary embolization is a rare, although real and potentially fatal, complication of cardiac myxomas. We present a case report and review of the literature on this disease association. A 57-year-old woman was...

Myxoma is the most common primary tumor in the heart. Cardiac myxomas can present in various manners including embolization and fever, sometimes simulating endocarditis. However, they are rarely infected. We report here a case of an infected left atrial myxoma that seeded a normal mitral valve and atypically presented with multiple embolic events in the lower extremities along with multiple spl...

A left atrial myxoma was surgically removed in a 58-year-old man following several embolic events. Five months later, a new myxoma was found in the right ventricular outflow tract and surgically removed. In this patient, we visualized two more recurrences 14 years later, one in the left atrium and the other in the left ventricle. A short review of the literature concerning recurrent cardiac myx...

INTRODUCTION The incidence of multiple intracardiac mass is rare. The differential diagnosis of intracavitary mass lesions includes benign, malignant primary, secondary metastatic cardiac tumors, or thrombus. CASE PRESENTATION We report the case of a 49-year-old Asian woman, who experienced a 2-week history of progressive exertional dyspnea, orthopnea, bilateral lower limb edema and palpitati...

From January 1959 to January 1969, eight patients with atrial myxoma were seen at Emory University and Grady Memorial hospitals. Five patients had symptoms and signs compatible with mitral stenosis, three of whom underwent surgery with an incorrect preoperative diagnosis of mitral stenosis. Two myxomas were found at autopsy, one in a patient who died of acute myocardial infarction. One patient ...

Cardiac myxomas are benign mesenchymal tumors that can present as components of the human autosomal dominant disorder Carney complex. Syndromic cardiac myxomas are associated with spotty pigmentation of the skin and endocrinopathy. Our linkage analysis mapped a Carney complex gene defect to chromosome 17q24. We now demonstrate that the PRKAR1alpha gene encoding the R1alpha regulatory subunit of...

Atrial myxomas are the most common primary heart tumors and the early diagnosis is rather difficult, since the clinical aspects are often non-specific, varying widely. The association of coronary artery disease to myxoma has not been frequently reported and may sometimes determine an early diagnosis of the tumor, before serious complications as systemic embolization or sudden death occur. Bi-di...

This is the first reported attempt to examine the emboliogenic potential of cardiac myxoma in patients with acute stroke through the monitoring of microembolic signals (MES) by transcranial doppler. A 43-year old woman was brought to the emergency department because of acute onset of generalized tonic-clonic seizures and left hemiplegia. A CT scan of the brain demonstrated a large acute infract...

We describe 2 children with cerebrovascular events caused by emboli from left atrial myxomas and review 7 other pediatric cases from the literature. Transient cutaneous eruptions involving the extremities preceded the cerebrovascular events and were most likely attributable to fragmentation of the atrial tumor with peripheral embolization. Our first case demonstrates the more common presentatio...

TOPIC: Cardiovascular Disease TYPE: Medical Student/Resident Case Reports INTRODUCTION: Lipomatous hypertrophy of the atrial septum (LHAS) is a rare, non-neoplastic fatty infiltration inter-atrial that spares fossa ovalis. It best differentiated from other cardiac tumors with transesophageal echocardiogram (TEE) and computed tomographic (CT) or magnetic resonance (MR) imaging. CASE PRESENTATION...