Surgical removal of an intracavitary left ventricular myxoma.

PRIMARY intracardiac tumors of the heart are rare. The commonest primary tumor is myxoma, found almost exclusively in the atria, 75 or mnore occurring in the left atrium. Mahaim' reported 200 primary cardiac tumors in 1945, from the world literature up to that time. Strauss and Merliss2 reviewed 480,331 autopsies from the Los Angeles County Hospital and were able to report 8 cases of myxoma occurring in the left atrium. Myxoma originating in the ventricles appears to be extremely rare. A well-doeumented pathologic study of a left ventricular myxoma with embolic occlusion of the abdominal aorta and renal arteries was published by Young and Hunter3 in 1957. The patient was a 10-year-old girl diagnosed as having rheumatic heart disease because of her cardiac disability and a rough mitral systolic murmur transmitted to the axilla and over the precordium. At autopsy a tumor was found practically filling the left ventricle and extending up to the aortic valve. The tumor was jelly-like, with multiple polypoid extensions. The tumor was attached to the endoeardium below the insertion of the posterior papillary muscle of the mitral valve. We have found no report of a similar tumor in the recent literature. The following is a case report of an intracavitary left ventricular myxomatous tumor,