ABSTRACT
Between 1978 and 1986, atrial heart tumors were found in 21 of our patients, all of them subsequently underwent surgery. Pathological-histological examination in 20 patients confirmed the diagnosis of a myxoma; the one remaining case was a female patient with primary cardiogenic osteosarcoma. Of the 20 patients, 15 (75%) were females; in four female patients (20%) the tumor was localized in the right atrium. The main symptoms and findings were elevated erythrocyte sedimentation rates (80%), stress-induced dyspnea or paroxysmal dyspnea (71% resp.), and diastolic mitral or tricuspid murmurs (62%). The patient with osteosarcoma died of cachexia on the basis of generalized diffuse metastases. One female patient with a preoperative history of severe left ventricular impairment on the basis of dilative cardiomyopathy died 5 weeks after surgery. Relapse of atrial myxoma has not yet occurred during follow-up since 1978.
Subject(s)
Echocardiography , Heart Atria/pathology , Heart Neoplasms/pathology , Myxoma/pathology , Osteosarcoma/pathology , Adult , Aged , Female , Heart Neoplasms/surgery , Heart Valve Diseases/pathology , Heart Valve Prosthesis , Heart Valves/pathology , Humans , Male , Middle Aged , Myxoma/surgery , Osteosarcoma/surgery , Postoperative Complications/pathologySubject(s)
Mitral Valve Prolapse/diagnosis , Adolescent , Adult , Echocardiography , Humans , Male , Mitral Valve Prolapse/epidemiologyABSTRACT
Hypertrophic obstructive cardiomyopathy is a primary disease of the myocardium. It usually involves hypertrophy of the septum and the outflow tract of the left ventricle, but it may also occur in all other areas of the ventricles. In a first step, the diastolic performance of the heart falls due to the impaired elasticity of the myocardium, later the contractile function in systole is also affected because of the slow filling of the ventricle. Tachycardial dysrhythmias and left-sided failure are frequent causes of death. Besides drug-therapy with beta-receptor blockers and calcium antagonists, surgical treatment is gaining increasingly in importance since observations of the clinical results are encouraging. With the M-mode echography an diagnostic method is available which is highly efficient.
