An incidental calcified right atrial mass

A 58-year-old man presented to his family physician with a mild cough. A routine chest x-ray revealed a 4 cm 'ring opacity' in the right atrium. A transthoracic echocardiogram revealed a 41 mm x 33 mm mass in the right atrium. The patient underwent urgent cardiac surgery, where a firm to hard 4 cm x 3 cm mass was excised. Pathology revealed an old, largely infarcted and calcified right atrial myxoma. A review of the published literature shows that this case is the first to demonstrate an almost completely infarcted atrial myxoma with only a few clusters of viable cells identified histologically.