Intern Med. 2002 Nov; 41(11): 957-60.

Infected left atrial myxoma.

Uchino K, Mochida Y, Ebina T, Tobe M, Kobayashi S, Yano Y, Kobayashi T, Nakazawa I, Ishikawa T, Kimura K, Takanashi Y, Umemura S.

Second Department of Internal Medicine, Yokohama City University School of Medicine, Yokohama.

A 47-year-old Japanese woman with a continuing high fever was promptly diagnosed as having infected atrial myxoma one day after admission based on transthoracic echocardiographic findings and positivity for bacteria in blood culture. The mass was removed by an urgent open heart surgery. Histopathological examination confirmed that this mass was a myxoma with gram-positive bacterial colonies. Generally, antemortem diagnosis is difficult and there is a high mortality of patients with infected myxoma; however, this patient completely recovered from the illness because of the prompt diagnosis. This is the 37th case of definite infected myxoma reported in the literature. The cause of infection of this patient might have been the acupuncture therapy she underwent for weight reduction.