Multidisciplinary approach in a case of successful surgical treatment of a voluminous intracardiac fungal mass in an infant

Abstract

We have read with great interest the article by Correale et al. 1 on a case of voluminous mycetoma in a newborn with Down Syndrome. The interest, in that case, was more than academic because of the brilliant and positive collaboration we had set up, at that time, offering cardiac surgical treatment to the patient referred by the colleagues at the Hospital OO.RR of Foggia. After a complete echocardiographic examination revealing a mass within the right atrium of an infant (6-month-old female) with a history of corrective surgery for duodenal stenosis and presenting, at the Neonatology Unit of the Hospital OO.RR of Foggia, with signs of severe congestive heart failure, a tele-echocardiographic counselling was promptly requested. This opportunity existed thanks to the Italian Ministry of Health research funds, which permitted similar audio-video ISDN-based devices to be installed in the main paediatric institutions in the Province of Puglia and linked in a wide regional network.2 Tele-echocardiography was performed at the remote site in Foggia and transmitted, in real time, to the Department of Pediatric Cardiac Surgery in Bari ( Figure 1A ). Owing to the adequate imaging resolution, the cardiologists and the surgeons, …