A rare case report of giant epicardial lipoma compressing the right atrium with septal enhancement.

Peng Teng,Yuhan Zhou,Yiming Ni,Shengjun Wu

doi:10.1186/s13019-015-0375-x

Peng Teng, Yuhan Zhou + Show 2 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.1186/s13019-015-0375-x

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Abstract

BackgroundCardiac Lipoma is a rare entity constituting approximately 10-19 % of primary tumors of the heart and pericardium. To our best knowledge, such a large cardiac lipoma with septal enhancement in our case has never been reported before.Case presentationHere we present a rare case of a 65-year-old symptomatic female with an unusual giant cardiac lipoma. Due to the enhancement of the tumor septa, it was first diagnosed as liposarcoma and thought to be unresectable. Debulking surgery was performed to release patient’s symptoms.ConclusionsThe patient ultimately underwent complete tumor resection with uneventful postoperative evolution. The postoperative pathological diagnosis is cardiac lipoma.

Highlights

Cardiac Lipoma is a rare entity constituting approximately 10-19 % of primary tumors of the heart and pericardium
Cardiac lipoma commonly originates from the epicardial adipose tissue of the right atrium (RA) and left ventricle (LV)
We report an unusual case of a giant epicardial lipoma with septal enhancement which was first diagnosed as liposarcoma

Summary

Background

Primary cardiac tumors are extremely rare with a reported incidence of 0.17-0.19 % at autopsy. Cardiac lipoma constitutes approximately 10-19 % of primary tumors of the heart and pericardium [1]. We report an unusual case of a giant epicardial lipoma with septal enhancement which was first diagnosed as liposarcoma. As far as we know, giant cardiac lipoma with similar imaging findings has seldom been reported. The water bottle sign of the cardiac silhouette was found on the chest roentgenogram (Fig. 1a). A giant lipoid tumor originating from RA was noted after pericardiotomy (Fig. 1c). Due to well capsulation and no signs of local invasion, the tumor was considered a lipoma and resectable. The histopathological examination made the final diagnosis of cardiac lipoma (Fig. 1f ). The patient had an uneventful recovery and without any recurrence at 1-year follow-up

Discussion

Conclusions