Background and purpose: Cardiac myxoma is the most common benign cardiac tumor. It can resemble many cardiovascular or systemic illnesses. This research presents a ten-year experience of Mazandaran heart center in clinical presentation, intra and post-operative complication, recurrence, and mortality of cardiac myxoma.
Materials and methods: This observational study was performed in 34 patients with a pre-operative diagnosis of myxoma over a 10-year period (2006-2016). The patients’ medical records were reviewed and some information including, clinical presentation, diagnostic tests, intra-operative and post-operative complications, recurrence, and mortality rate were recorded. Furthermore, data about tumor size, localization and attachment, and histopathological diagnosis were collected.  Echocardiography was performed at the end of follow-up.
Results: Histopathological studies confirmed diagnosis of myxoma in 30 patients mainly localized in left atrium that were attached to inter-atrial septum. The most common clinical presentation was dyspnea that was reported in 20 patients (58.8%). Systemic and central nervous system embolization were seen in 5.9% and 17.6%, respectively which were not associated with the size of myxoma. Two patients died during hospitalization. Also, two patients died during follow-up period due to other illnesses. One patient experienced recurrence.
Conclusion: This study showed a low incidence of recurrence of cardiac myxoma. Therefore, long-term echocardiographic follow-up is recommended.