Case Report
Bileaflet Blood Cysts on the Mitral Valve in an Adult

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Blood cysts within the heart are very rare entities in adults. The authors present possibly the first ever case in which blood cysts were found on both mitral valve leaflets. A 65-year-old woman was referred for transthoracic echocardiography because of vague chest discomfort. Transthoracic echocardiography displayed echo-free cysts on the tips of both mitral valve leaflets. Subsequent transesophageal echocardiography confirmed this finding. The blood cysts were successfully surgically removed.

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Case Report

We present the case of a 65-year-old woman who was referred to the echocardiography lab as part of evaluation before coronary angiography because of worsening diffuse chest pain of 4 months in duration (Written informed consent was obtained from the patient for the publication of this case report.) The patient had a 15-year history of vague chest pain both at rest and on exertion. Moreover, the patient had a 26-year history of medically treated mild hypertension and recently discovered mild

Discussion

Elsässer22 first described the existence of blood cysts attached to cardiac valves in 1844, and Hauser et al2 presented the first echocardiographic description in 1983. Several case reports have been published in this area since, and blood cysts have been described on all valves and attached to the surfaces of all cardiac chambers. We searched the literature and found 10 previous case reports of adults (aged > 18 years) with blood cysts attached to the mitral valve. Table 1 summarizes these

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Copyright © 2009 American Society of Echocardiography. Published by Mosby, Inc. All rights reserved.