Nomeda Valevičienė, Žaneta Petrulionienė, Laura Keinaitė, Marius Urbonas
Abstract
Materials and methods: intracardiac masses are describedas abnormal structures inside the heart orimmediately concerned to the heart [1] and can beclassified as a cardiac tumor, metastasis, ,,thrombusin situ”/,,embolus in transit”, vegetation or iatrogenicmaterial [2, 3]. The precise diagnosis is essentialdue to the necessity of the expedient well-timedtreatment. We report a case of 58 year old womanwith recently diagnosed left lung adenocarcinoma,admitted to the emergency department with pulmonaryembolism. The case report presented here describesthe findings of transthoracical echocardiographythat suggested a right atrial mass – thrombusversus embolus. However, the subsequent CMRimaging helped to differentiate a true right atrialmass from a prominent crista terminalis.Conclusions: the cardiovascular magnetic resonanceimaging is a valuable diagnostic method for thedifferentiation of the intracardiac masses when thetransthoracical and/or transesophagial echocardiographyis inadequate in some clinical cases. Thisnoninvasive, cost-effective imaging technique has alarger field of view and differentiates various conditionsof the heart therefore the expedient well-timedtreatment could be applied.
Keyword(s): intracardiac masses, intracardiac thrombus, cardiovascular magnetic resonance imaging, transthoracical echocardiography, transesophagial echocardiography, crista terminalis, lung adenocarcinoma, pulmonary embolism, thrombosis
DOI: 10.5200/sm-hs.2014.072
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