A metastatic ball tumor in the right atrium originating from esophageal cancer: report of a case.

A metastatic ball tumor in the right atrium originating from esophageal cancer is extremely rare. A 53-year-old woman had two such tumors without any other types of metastasis. These tumors were associated with severe thrombocytopenia caused by the consumption of platelets. Even after repeated transfusions of platelets and fresh frozen plasma, the thrombocytopenia could not be controlled. Therefore, a surgical resection was performed to improve the thrombocytopenia and avoid sudden death due to a complete obstruction of the right ventricular outflow tract by the tumor. As the throm-bocytopenia did not recur postoperatively, the patient was discharged from hospital. She died, however, of multiple metastases with bilateral pleural effusions 5 months after the surgery.