Management of giant left atrium in patient undergoing left ventricular assist device placement.

Giant left atrium in a patient who requires heart transplantation not only poses a significant mortality risk due to compression effect on the surrounding intrathoracic structures but also leads to technical difficulties during transplantation, especially with the left atrial anastomosis. We discuss a case of a patient with a giant left atrium with end-stage valvular cardiomyopathy where simultaneous ventricular assist device placement and left atrium reduction plasty was undertaken as a bridge to cardiac transplantation. Copyright 2010 The Society of Thoracic Surgeons. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.