Sporadic multicentric right atrial and right ventricular myxoma presenting as acute pulmonary thromboembolism

Abstract

Multicentric cardiac myxoma is a rare syndrome; usually it is familial. We report a rare case of sporadic right atrium (RA) and right ventricle (RV) myxoma in a 26-year-old female presenting to our hospital for the evaluation of sudden onset of dyspnea and left precordial pain attributed to the embolization of degenerating tumor fragments to the pulmonary artery (PA). The exact incidence of sporadic multicentric RA and RV myxoma presenting as acute pulmonary embolism is unknown as multicentric RA and RV myxoma are very rare. Myxomas presenting as pulmonary embolism is <10%. Majority of cardiac myxomas present as exertional dyspnea, chest pain, positional syncope, fever, weight loss and other constitutional symptoms. Any young patient presenting with acute onset dyspnea with multiple cardiac masses may have tumor embolization to the PA diagnosis with transthoracic echocardiography and high-resolution computed tomography of thorax, fast-tracks patient transfer for urgent cardiac surgery to prevent further embolization.

Keywords

• Echocardiography
• multicentric cardiac myxoma
• pulmonary embolism