Surgical experience with intracardiac myxomas: long-term follow-up.
BACKGROUND
Myxomas are the most common benign intracardiac tumors. This report summarizes our 20-year experience with these tumors.


METHODS
Sixty-six patients (25 male) with a median age of 39 years (range, 6 to 70 years) underwent surgical excision of primary or recurrent intracardiac myxomas during the years 1976 to 1996. Symptom duration ranged from 2 to 8 months. There were 55 left atrial myxomas, 10 right atrial myxomas, and 1 biatrial myxoma. Three of the patients were in one family. The surgical approach comprised complete wide excision.


RESULTS
There were two early deaths. Late follow-up is 89% (57/64) complete. There was one late death, which was not due to a cardiac cause. Echocardiography at a mean follow-up of 66.9 months (range, 7 to 241 months) showed no recurrence of sporadic myxomas. However, 2 of the 3 patients with familial myxomas had recurrence.


CONCLUSIONS
Surgical excision of atrial myxoma gives excellent short-term and long-term results leading to eventual cure of nonfamilial myxomas. However, familial myxomas retain a strong tendency to recur even 20 years after excision.
Cardiothoracic Centre, All India Institute of Medical Sciences, New Delhi.
A
A
Bhan
R
R
Mehrotra
S K
SK
Choudhary
R
R
Sharma
D
D
Prabhakar
B
B
Airan
A S
AS
Kumar
P
P
Venugopal
D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D002648:Child; D005260:Female; D005500:Follow-Up Studies; D006338:Heart Neoplasms / Q000000981:diagnostic imaging / Q000601:surgery*; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D009232:Myxoma / Q000000981:diagnostic imaging / Q000601:surgery*; D009364:Neoplasm Recurrence, Local / Q000601:surgery; D016896:Treatment Outcome; D014463:Ultrasonography