Giant left atrium is a condition characterized by huge enlargement of the left atrium with a diameter exceeding 65mm. It is most commonly associated with long standing rheumatic mitral valve disease. We present a 45-year-old female patient with rheumatic mitral stenosis associated with giant left atrium occupied by an 11 × 10 × 5 cm thrombus weighing 500 gms. The patient underwent successful mi...

Anomalous pulmonary venous return (APVR) is a rare cardiac anomaly defined as one or more pulmonary veins draining into a structure other than the left atrium, with venous return directly or indirectly to the right atrium. The most common form is partial APVR, in which one to three pulmonary veins drain into systemic veins or into the right atrium. We report the case of a woman diagnosed with p...

Left atrium dilates and hypertrophies in mitral stenosis cases. Occasionally left atrium reaches to extreme sizes. In giant left atrium cases, mitral stenosis may be the sole pathology or it may be accompanied by mitral insufficiency, or it may present as mixed mitral disease where mitral stenosis dominate. Transthoracic echocardiography is the easiest and cheapest method for the diagnosis and ...

With the advent of modern cardiac surgery the clinical diagnosis of intramural thrombi, ball valve thrombi and myxomatous and other tumors in the left atrium has assumed great importance. It is shown here that a diagnosis of thrombosis within the left atrium is possible by angiocardiography. The angiocardiographic features of mural and ball valve thrombi of the left atrium and of left auricular...

Giant left atrium is a rare condition, with a reported incidence of 0.3%, and following mainly rheumatic mitral valve disease. Although rheumatic heart disease represents the main cause of giant left atrium, other etiologies have been reported. Giant left atrium has significant hemodynamic effects and requires specific management. In this review, we present two cases, discuss the different defi...

An asymptomatic cardiac neurilemoma was found in a 33-year-old woman. The tumor was on the anterior surface of the right atrium extending to the right upper pulmonary vein across the interatrial groove. The tumor was resected completely and right atrium, interatrial septum, left atrium and right superior pulmonary vein were reconstructed with cardiopulmonary bypass. The patient recovered uneven...

A69-year-old woman presented as an outpatient with shortness of breath. She was a former smoker and had a past medical history of rheumatic heart disease with mild mitral stenosis and moderate-to-severe mitral insufficiency associated with atrial fibrillation. A chest x-ray revealed near-complete opacification of the right mid-to-lower lung zones, with a shift of the mediastinal structures and ...

In the isolated, blood-perfused, canine right atrium, stimulation of the intramural autonomic nerves evoked negative chronotropic and inotropic responses. The responses were not maintained at a constant level during tonic neural stimulation, but they tended to drift back toward their control levels. These time-dependent changes in the cardiac responses were more pronounced the higher the freque...

To cite: Alvarez-Acosta L, Sanchez-Quintana A, FarraisVillalba M, et al. BMJ Case Rep Published online: [please include Day Month Year] doi:10.1136/bcr-2013009551 DESCRIPTION A 51-year-old female patient presented to the emergency room with a 3-month history of increasing dyspnoea, and 5 kg weight loss. Her medical history was not relevant. Physical examination revealed 100/90 mm Hg blood press...

Buildings with atrium can be found everywhere in big cities among which Hong Kong is one of the examples. The evolution of this building type should be traced back to explore the reason why it has been a popular design throughout these years. It was found originated about two hundred years ago, with changes in terms of configurations and functions occurred. After centuries of development, benef...