Left atrial myxoma simulating a systemic disease with pleural-pericardial effusion. Detection by two-dimensional echocardiography.

Clinical symptoms of cardiac myxomas are often very confusing. We observed a 46-year-old woman with a left atrial myxoma simulating systemic disease with pleural-pericardial effusion. We think that like other systemic symptoms effusion (which to our knowledge has not been previously described in literature) can be attributed to the result of tumor secretion or necrosis. In fact, soon after surgical removal of the tumor, all pathological signs disappeared.