UNTIL RECENTLY, the finding of a myxoma in the atrium at autopsy would have only stimulated academic discussion. At present it generates remorse, since it represents a lesion of a curable disease. The purpose of this paper is to present detailed preoperative and postoperative clinical and hemodynamic findings in a patient with a myxoma of the right atrium and to review the pertinent English literature.
Report of a Case
First Admission.
—A 51-year-old white woman (46-96-36) was admitted to the University of Iowa Hospitals in April 1962, with ascites and edema for which she had been treated with diuretics since 1959. The gradual increase in ascites, dyspnea, and orthopnea had become incapacitating in the last three weeks. Severe weakness, anorexia, weight loss, profuse perspiration, and frequent fever and chills had been present since December 1961, and in February 1962, she was treated for "hepatitis." In 1949 she was treated for