Incidental cardiac lymphangioma misdiagnosed as atrial thrombus: A case report.

Cardiac lymphangioma is a characteristically benign primary neoplasm of the heart, previously reported only in a handful of cases. A right atrial lesion was found of a 56-years old healthy male patient. The lesion was surgically excised and identified as cardiac lymphangioma in postoperative pathological analysis. While open surgical tumor resection is preferred in patients with cardiac lymphangioma, preoperative characterization of suspected lesions may warrant conservative management in selected cases.

The Importance of International Normalized Ratio Monitoring in Patients With Mechanical Pulmonary Valve Prosthesis.

Background: The most challenging risk of mechanical valves is thromboembolic events; therefore, life-long anticoagulation therapy is necessary. Anticoagulation therapy should be adjusted for each patient with serial international normalized ratio (INR) monitoring. Due to the small number of patients with a mechanical valve in the pulmonary position, we are facing a lack of information about the therapeutic range of the INR in these patients. We aimed to evaluate patients with a history of pulmonary valve replacement (PVR) who faced malfunction and compare their INR and echocardiographic data at the time of malfunction and 3 months prior. Methods: In this cross-sectional study, 71 patients who had previously undergone PVR and presented to Shaheed Rajaie Cardiovascular Medical and Research Center with a diagnosis of pulmonary valve malfunction between 2014 and 2021 were included. Patients' INR and echocardiographic data at the time of the malfunction and 3 months before the malfunction diagnosis were gathered from the hospital's registry. IBM SPSS 20.0 was used for data analysis. Results: In this cross-sectional study, 71 patients with mechanical pulmonary valve malfunction were included. 49.3% (n = 35) were men, 50.7% (n=36) were women, and their mean age was 33.23 (±8.279). The mean INR of all patients 3 months before malfunction and at the time of malfunction was 2.29 (±0.753) and 2.20 (±0.704), respectively. Conclusion: In this study, most of our patients had an INR below the therapeutic range, both at the time of malfunction and 3 months prior. It emphasizes the importance of patient follow-up and keeping the INR in the therapeutic range.