IMR Press / RCM / Volume 16 / Issue 1 / DOI: 10.3909/ricm0745

Reviews in Cardiovascular Medicine (RCM) is published by IMR Press from Volume 19 Issue 1 (2018). Previous articles were published by another publisher in Open Access under a CC-BY (or CC-BY-NC-ND) licence, and they are hosted by IMR Press on imrpress.com as a courtesy and upon agreement with MedReviews, LLC.

Open Access Case Review
The Clot Thickens: Unusual Presentation of a Left Atrial Thrombus
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1 Department of Internal Medicine, Kaiser Permanente Oakland Medical Center, Oakland, CA
2 Department of Cardiothoracic Surgery, Kaiser Permanente San Francisco Medical Center, San Francisco, CA
3 Department of Cardiology, Kaiser Permanente Oakland Medical Center, Oakland, CA
4 Department of Pathology, Kaiser Permanente San Francisco Medical Center, San Francisco, CA
5 Department of Cardiology, Kaiser Permanente San Francisco Medical Center, San Francisco, CA
6 Department of Medicine, University of California, San Francisco, San Francisco, CA
Rev. Cardiovasc. Med. 2015, 16(1), 81–83; https://doi.org/10.3909/ricm0745
Published: 30 March 2015
Abstract
Left atrial thrombi are a significant cause of cardioembolic morbidity and mortality. Transesophageal echocardiography is the preferred method for complete visualization of atrial thrombi, and has a sensitivity and specificity of up to 100% and 99%, respectively. Cardiac magnetic resonance imaging has been shown to be useful in identifying tissue characteristics that may aid in differentiating between atrial myxoma and thrombi. This is an unusual case of a large, free-floating atrial thrombus with a cystic appearance that was surgically removed. The echocardiographic appearance of the cystic atrial mass led to the consideration of another potential etiology for a cardiac mass, namely, atrial myxoma. Histopathologic analyses of the mass led to the final diagnosis of an atrial thrombus.
Keywords
Atrial thrombus
Atrial myxoma
Transesophageal echocardiography
Cardiac magnetic resonance imaging
Histopathology
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