Embolus to the right atrium simulating myxoma

Abstract

A space‐occupying mass of the right atrium was found by two‐dimensional echocardiography and angiography in a 68‐year‐old woman whose clinical diagnosis indicated multiple pulmonary emboli. Since right heart myxomas frequently cause pulmonary thrombo‐embolism, the patient was initially diagnosed by noninvasive and invasive techniques as having a right atrial myxoma. Surgery, however, revealed the pathologic findings of large thrombi of the right atrium, femoral and iliac veins, and pulmonary arteries. This case vividly demonstrates that deep venous thrombosis may embolize and lodge in the right atrial cavity simulating a right atrial myxoma. Copyright © 1984 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.