Cardiac masses always represented a diagnostic challenge for clinicians. The distinction between the different types of intracardiac masses, including thrombi, vegetation and tumors, is an important step in providing therapeutic and prognostic information to the patient. Transthoracic 2D echocardiogram is the primary diagnostic tool used widely to detect and evaluate intracardiac mass and the c...

BACKGROUND Obesity is a major health problem in the Western world. Among obese subjects cardiac pathology is common, but conventional noninvasive imaging modalities are often suboptimal for detailed evaluation of cardiac structure and function. We investigated whether cardiovascular magnetic resonance imaging (CMR) can better characterize possible cardiac abnormalities associated with obesity, ...

Left ventricular hypertrophy (LVH) is a common adaptive response of the heart to the increased workload associated with hypertension.1 Essential hypertension is characterized by an increase in total peripheral resistance.2 Mechanical modeling of the cardiovascular system suggests that a necessary consequence of increased downstream resistance to flow is increased pressure to maintain end organ ...

Cardiac papillary fibroelastoma (CPF) is a rare and benign primary cardiac neoplasm of unknown prevalence. The incidence of CPF in the left ventricle is lower than that in other parts of the heart. A 65-year-old female was referred to our cardiology department for evaluation of a cardiac mass of the left ventricle. Transthoracic echocardiography revealed a 1.8 × 1.7 cm highly mobile round mass ...

Acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) is a systemic disease that is presented with different symptoms and signs. Cardiac manifestation is rare in ALL, but it is very important and needs appropriate management. It usually presents as leukemic myocardial infiltration and in the presence of cardiac mass comprehensive evaluation for other etiologies is mandatory. We reported on a 6-year-old boy in rem...

Despite enzyme replacement therapy, disease progression is observed in patients with Fabry disease. Identification of factors that predict disease progression is needed to refine guidelines on initiation and cessation of enzyme replacement therapy. To study the association of potential biochemical and clinical prognostic factors with the disease course (clinical events, progression of cardiac a...

Background: Cardiac dysfunction due to chronic anemia and hemosiderosis are the major causes of death among patients with thalassemia intermedia. This study was performed to compare the cardiac function in thalassemia intermedia patients with normal subjects by means of echocardiography. Materials and Methods: This was a case-control study performed on 22 patients affected by thalassemia int...

During a routine physical examination, a 37-year-old woman was noted to have a heart murmur. Her physician ordered a transthoracic echocardiogram for the presumptive diagnosis of mitral valve prolapse. Instead, the study showed a mass in the anterior wall of the left ventricle (Figure 1), with a question of a second mass involving the posterior papillary muscle. A transesophageal echocardiogram...

We describe here a 42-year-old woman who was admitted to hospital with a pedunculated mass in her left atrium. She was diagnosed with a primary cardiac osteosarcoma with special immunohistochemical characteristics. Echocardiography and computed tomography can be used to differentiate cardiac osteosarcomas from routine intracardiac tumors. The patient was treated by surgical removal of the mass....

Methods Over a 7 year period, 161 patients were referred for CMR for evaluation of a known or suspected cardiac mass. A retrospective chart review of these 161 patients revealed that 42 patients (26%) had subsequent biopsyproven diagnosis of a cardiac mass. CMR characteristics of biopsy proven cardiac masses, including contrast enhancement on first pass and delayed images, signal intensity on T...