Left atrial myxoma can present with symptoms mimicking pneumonia, emphasizing the need for echocardiographic evaluation in patients with unexplained dyspnea and a murmur.
May support echocardiography for unexplained dyspnea with murmur; leaves open broader adoption without prospective data.
A 55-year-old female presented to the emergency department at a small community hospital with cough, fever, dyspnea and blood-streaked sputum. A chest radiograph was ordered. She was diagnosed with pneumonia and discharged home with antibiotics. She returned three days later, afebrile, with worsening dyspnea and gross hemoptysis. She was found to have a murmur reported as chronic but had never been evaluated by echocardiography. A computed tomography chest and echocardiography were performed (Figure). She was diagnosed with a left atrial myxoma (Video). She was transferred and underwent tumor excision.
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Schauer et al. (2014) studied this question.
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