Papillary fibroelastoma of the pulmonary valve: assessment by live/real time three-dimensional transthoracic echocardiography.

The differential diagnosis of a cardiac valve mass includes fibroelastoma, myxoma, lipoma, Lambl's excrescences, thrombus, and vegetation. Fibroelastomas are extremely rare primary cardiac tumors. Their incidence is 0.00017-0.033% in autopsy series and 0.019% in clinical series identified on echocardiography. Although rare, fibroelastomas are the most common tumors affecting the cardiac valves with aortic, mitral, tricuspid, and pulmonary valves being involved in this order. In the current report we describe a case of pulmonary valve mass in which a confident prospective diagnosis of fibroelastoma could be made utilizing the technique of three-dimensional transthoracic echocardiography.