Misdiagnosis for right atrial mass: a case report

Patients with chronic kidney disease undergoing haemodialysis (HD) therapy have high morbidity and mortality, the main causes are cardiovascular events followed by infectious disease. Infectious problems originate from the vascular access, especially when such access is through a central venous catheter.

We described a 72-year-old man with end-stage renal disease, requiring HD, with fever and purulent discharge at the catheter insertion site. Transthoracic echocardiography revealed a 39 × 27 mm mobile mass in the right atrium. Magnetic resonance imaging showed a 53 × 45 × 36 mm mass suggesting myxoma. The patient underwent surgery and a mass of approximately 5 × 6 cm was found attached to the floor of the right atrium, next to the inferior vena cava outlet, without affecting the tricuspid valve or the interatrial septum. Histopathology reported infected thrombus. This case confirms that sometimes it is difficult to perform a differential diagnosis between intracardiac masses. The patient showed full clinical recovery during this period and was discharged. Currently, he is in good clinical condition and attends follow-up clinic of nephrology, regularly.

In HD patients, a high index of suspicion is very important in the early recognition and management of infective endocarditis. Imaging studies are very useful for the diagnosis of intracardiac masses, but sometimes it is difficult to differentiate one mass from another. In our case, despite the multimodal approach, the histopathological study was the one that gave us the definitive diagnosis.