Incidental Finding of a Left Atrial Myxoma While Characterising an Autoimmune Disease

Abstract

Although cardiac tumours are uncommon, cardiac myxomas account for more than fifty percent of all cases and are the most frequent primary cardiac tumour. They have a broad clinical spectrum, usually related to cardiac symptoms, peripheral embolic events or systemic manifestations. We present a case report of a 68-year-old man who presented with systemic symptoms and analytical features suggestive of an autoimmune disease. In the ensuing diagnostic procedures, a cardiac myxoma was found, and after surgical resection, both the systemic manifestations and the analytical abnormalities disappeared.

Keywords: cardiac benign tumor; constitutional symptoms; left atrial myxoma.

Fig. 1

The CT scan with intravenous contrast medium administration showed a large left atrial mass that passed through the mitral valve into the left ventricle, in both slides: horizontal plane (A) and sagittal plane (B). Radiologists could not rule out an intracardiac thrombus (big white arrow). RV: right ventricle. LV: left ventricle. LA: left auricle.

Fig. 2

Echocardiography revealed a floating mass (white arrow), which originated from the interatrial septum, near the drainage of the right superior pulmonary vein. Slide A (systole) shows the mass within the left auricle (LA). However, the mass prolapsed through the mitral valve and reached the centre of the left ventricle (LV) in diastole (slide B).