Ann Thorac Surg 2001;72:945
© 2001 The Society of Thoracic Surgeons
Images in cardiothoracic surgery
Fluttering valvar myxoma arising from anterior mitral leaflet
Tokuo Koshino, MD, PhDa,
Kiyofumi Morishita, MD, PhDa,
Kanshi Komatsu, MD, PhDa,
Tomio Abe, MD, PhDa
a Department of Thoracic and Cardiovascular Surgery, Sapporo Medical University School of Medicine, Sapporo, Japan
Address reprint requests to Dr Koshino, Department of Thoracic and Cardiovascular Surgery, Sapporo Medical University School of Medicine, South 1 West 16, Chuo-ku, Sapporo, 060-8543 Japan
e-mail: tokuo{at}serpent.cc.sapmed.ac.jp
Cardiac myxomas are primary cardiac tumors that usually locate in the left atrium. Valvar myxoma, which arises from the anterior mitral leaflet and nearly obstruct mitral flow, is a very rare condition.
The patient was a 62-year-old woman with a history of palpitation for 5 years. Recently, she had a diagnosis of intracranial facial neurinoma, and a craniotomy was performed in the Department of Neurosurgery. In follow-up, she sometimes complained of palpitation. A cardiologist performed an echocardiography, and pointed out a fluttering mass in the left atrium that herniated to the left ventricle in the diastolic phase (Fig 1). Echocardiography (Fig 1A) revealed a myxoma derived from the anterior mitral leaflet (LA = left atrium; LV = left ventricle). Mitral stenosis because of the myxoma is shown in Figure 1B. The enhanced computed tomographic scan (Fig 2) also demonstrated a low density shadow (a large mass) in the left atrium. In operation, the tumor was pedunculated from the anterior mitral leaflet. The tumor was resected completely (Fig 3).
