[A late diagnosis of left atrial myxoma: how to gain time?]

A 56-year-old man presented to the Outpatient Cardiology Unit for dyspnea that had been lasting 6 months and an occasional episode of cold perspiration on climbing a flight of stairs. In the suspicion of coronary artery disease, he was prescribed a complete blood panel, an echocardiogram and a treadmill stress test. The echocardiogram, performed as late as 78 days after the first evaluation and only by chance scheduled 2 days before the stress test, enabled a diagnosis of left atrial myxoma for which the patient successfully underwent cardiac surgery. The authors discuss the aspecific and potentially misleading nature of myxoma symptoms and highlight the latency between cardiological evaluation and diagnostic echocardiography.