A 20-year single community-based tertiary care center’s experience with cardiac myxomas

We analyzed 54 cases of cardiac myxoma (n = 40) and non-myxoma (n = 14) diagnosed at a single community-based tertiary care center over 20 years. The data were retrospectively collected for patients between the period January 2000 and September 2020 from the hospital database. We described patient characteristics and clinical features of cardiac myxoma. In patients with diagnosis of cardiac myxoma, the median age was 64 years (range 41–78), with 58% females. Cardiac myxoma patients presented in a variety of ways, as dyspnea (42%), palpitations (20%), and chest pain (15%). Transesophageal echocardiogram was performed in 82.5% of patients. Chest computed tomography (CT) was performed in 32.5%, while cardiac magnetic resonance imaging (CMRI) was performed in 10%. Ischemic evaluation was performed in the majority of patients, primarily having cardiac catheterization. All cardiac myxomas were a single mass and the most common location was the left atrium (n = 34, 85%), followed by the right atrium (n = 6, 15%). 33 (83%) of them were larger than 2 cm. We differentiated cardiac myxoma from non-myxoma mass, which was most commonly a thrombus by histopathology. More patients with cardiac myxoma underwent surgical resection and required hospital and ICU stay than non-myxoma patients. No patients in either group experienced inpatient mortality or a mass recurrence with a median follow-up period of 2 years.