Elsevier

American Heart Journal

Volume 68, Issue 2, August 1964, Pages 227-235
American Heart Journal

Experimental and laboratory report
Pulmonary hypertension due to myxoma of the right atrium

https://doi.org/10.1016/0002-8703(64)90044-4Get rights and content

Abstract

A 35-year-old woman developed a pulmonary arterial hypertension of 5225mm. Hg, with a diastolic pressure gradient of 10 mm. Hg across the tricuspid valve. Radiography revealed shadowing in the right lower lobe, and angiocardiography showed an enormous filling defect in the right atrium. A diagnosis of pulmonary hypertension with underlying obstructive pulmonary vascular disease complicating a myxoma of the right atrium was made successfully, and the mass was removed surgically. The patient died of congestive cardiac failure after the operation. The pulmonary arteries were found to be occluded by emboli of myoxoma which had actively infiltrated the media. The appearances were totally unlike those of recurrent pulmonary thromboembolism. This capacity for limited invasiveness leads us to believe that the cardiac myxoma is a true neoplasm and not a degenerate thrombus.

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