ATRIAL HAEMANGIOMA – A CASE REPORT AND REVIEW OF THE LITERATURE

C. Furnica, A. Grigoras, D. B. Iliescu, C. Scripcaru, R. O. Chistol, G. Tinica,

Abstract: Primary cardiac tumours are rare entities and haemangiomas represent only 2.8% of these tumours. Haemangiomas are usually revealed by various symptoms depending on their size and location or can be incidentally discovered during routine examination or at autopsy. We report the case of a 70 years old Caucasian male referred for autopsy after being found deceased in his apartment. The main cause of death was considered to be haemorrhagic stroke secondary to rupture of an anterior communicating artery aneurysm with bronchopneumonia as a concurring cause. Heart dissection revealed the presence of a round, reddish, tumour adherent to the posterior wall of the left atrium and unrelated to the cause of death. Microscopic examination established the diagnosis of cavernous haemangioma. An interrogation of PubMed database for the time interval between 2008 and 2018 revealed only 11 cases of cardiac haemangiomas, 6 of them of cavernous type. In conclusion, cardiac haemangiomas are exceptional discoveries but cardiologists and cardiac surgeons should be aware of their existence as the symptoms and medical imaging aspects are non-specific and potentially mislead the diagnosis.
Keywords: primary cardiac tumour, cavernous haemangioma, autopsy, histological examination.