Surgical removal of an intrapericardial aneurysmal dilatation of the left atrial appendage successfully eliminated recurrent supraventricular tachycardia in a young woman.
May support aneurysm resection for refractory SVT; leaves open need for prospective data before wider adoption.
A case of intrapericardial aneurysmal dilatation of the left atrial appendage occurring in a young woman is described. The patient presented with recurrent arrhythmia, which on one occasion was documented to be a supraventricular tachycardia. Routine chest x-ray revealed an abnormal configuration of the left heart border. A precordial scan with 131 I-labeled albumin provided evidence that the mass on the left heart border was blood filled and strongly suggested that it was cardiac in origin. Pulmonary, followed by left atrial, cineangiography provided the definitive diagnosis and demonstrated extremely slow clearance of radiopaque dye from the appendageal aneurysm. Following surgical removal of the aneurysm the tachycardias have not recurred. The previous experience in the literature with this problem is briefly presented.
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GODWIN et al. (1968) studied this question.
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