Giant Cavernous Hemangioma of the Right Atrium - A Rare Case and Literature Review

A 52 years old woman, asymptomatic, with no significant medical history, presented to a thoracic surgery department for excision of a giant mediastinal mass that was incidentally detected during a routine abdominal ultrasound. Various imaging methods (echocardiography, chest X-ray, CT-scan, MRI) located the mediastinal mass as paracardiac and the excision using video-assisted thoracoscopic surgery (VATS) was proposed, in general thoracic surgery department. Although initially considered a paracardiac mass, intraoperatively the tumor location proved to be intrapericardial. Reaching the limits of VATS, a median sternotomy and longitudinal pericardiotomy were performed, demonstration a right atrium tumor with intrapericardial extension. At this stage, the excision was considered impossible without cardiopulmonary bypass and cardiac arrest. Having this information, the case was deferred to cardiovascular surgery, one week after and, a complete resection of the tumor was performed without incidents. Both atria were reconstructed with patches of autologous and bovine pericardium. The postoperative outcome of the patient was very good and the histopathology report showed that the tumor was a cavernous hemangioma. The literature was reviewed for this pathology. a rare case of a giant cavernous hemangioma of the heart, with diagnostic pitfalls had a successful multidisciplinary staged approach.