Surgical management of cardiac myxoma

Abstract

We present the case of a 32 year old patient known to have a psychiatric disorder, who presented with a history of one month of dyspnoea and nonproductive cough, which was treated initially as bronchopneumonia, with wide spectrum antibiotics without clinical improvement. Later is treated as an acute pulmonary distress syndrome, but because of poor general condition and incongruent data in the clinical history an echocardiogram was performed in the Emergency Room that incidentally founds a myxoma in the left atrium. Cardiac myxomas are the most common primary heart benign tumors, and have a mortality rate associated with sudden death of 15%. In the majority of the cases the diagnosis is incidental, sporadic and the etiology is unknown. The symptoms may be associated with tumor embolism, heart failure, valvular disease and nonspecific symptoms.