title: Incidental detection of an asymptomatic papillary fibroelastoma on a control biopsy of a heart transplant recipient.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Papillary fibroelastoma (PFE) of the right ventricle is a rare lesion. This tumor has not been described in the heart of a cardiac transplant recipient.
  
  
  RESULTS
  We report a 42-year-old woman suffering from chronic ischemic cardiopathy who underwent an orthotopic cardiac transplantation. Five years after surgery, the control two-dimensional echocardiography showed no abnormalities. At this time, the programmed endomyocardial biopsies of the right ventricle included a 2-mm lesion that was diagnosed as PFE. To our knowledge, only a previous case of this tumor has been detected at random in a control cardiac biopsy. Differential diagnosis includes chordae tendinae removed at the time of cardiac sampling, Lambl excrescence, and myxoma.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  PFE can arise in a cardiac transplant recipient and may be detected on a random programmed biopsy.
authors.affiliation: Department of Anatomical Pathology, Medical Faculty, Marqués de Valdecilla University Hospital, University of Cantabria, ES-39008 Santander, Spain. apavbj@humv.es
authors.forename: J Fernando
authors.initials: JF
authors.lastname: Val-Bernal
authors.forename: Daniel
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Val
authors.forename: M Francisca
authors.initials: MF
authors.lastname: Garijo
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D009202:Cardiomyopathies / Q000601:surgery; D003937:Diagnosis, Differential; D004452:Echocardiography; D005260:Female; D005350:Fibroma / Q000473:pathology*; D006338:Heart Neoplasms / Q000473:pathology*; D016027:Heart Transplantation / Q000473:pathology*; D006801:Humans