Corticosteroid prophylaxis for fetal immaturity in a pregnant patient with atrial myxoma

We report a case of a woman at 32nd gestational week, admitted for resting dyspnea, showing left atrial (LA) myxoma. Cardiac myxomas are the most common primary benign tumors of the heart. The incidence of cardiac myxomas diagnosed in pregnancy is extremely low. In the present case, cesarean delivery and concomitant surgical resection of LA myxoma were both delayed after corticosteroid prophylaxis in order to reduce neonatal cerebral, intestinal, and pulmonary complications. <Learning objective: The rarity of these cases makes the management more related to anecdotal experiences. In our case, the gestational age was lower than 34th week, but the fetus was sufficiently large to be delivered before heart surgery with low risk of prematurity complications after an adequate corticosteroid prophylaxis. A waiting approach with several days of corticosteroid prophylaxis was successfully adopted. When the pregnant hemodynamics are stable with low risk of complications, heart surgery should be delayed after corticosteroid prophylaxis.>.