Intra-atrial myxomas, clinical-pathologic correlation based on two case studies including historical review

The two cases of left-sided myxomas are reported with both patients having had uneventful cardiac surgery. One patient had an uneventful recovery and is doing well, whereas the second patient (female) had a complicating cerebrovascular accident. This patient was thought to have myxoma embolization; however, histopathologic verification could not be obtained. This latter patient had of course a higher risk of developing thromboembolization, due to the concomitant valve surgery procedure. The clinical, operative and pathologic studies confirm the lesions as primary myxomas and support and amplify the diagnostic concept of those lesions being of neoplastic nature, and countermand the previously commonly held concept of the thrombotic nature of myxomas. The nature of the myxoma is the primitive mesenchymal vasoformative cells of the atrial subendocardium, which is equivalent to the subendocardial cushion cell.