A 48-year-old male patient was admitted to the emergency department with complaining of an acute onset of dyspnea. A chest X-ray demonstrated pulmonary edema while echocardiography revealed a giant mass originating from the mitral valve orifice, which was severely blocking the atrioventricular flow. The patient underwent emergency surgery in which the giant, capsulated, myxoid mass with its large basement membrane situated over almost all parts of the interatrial septum of the left atrium, was completely resected together with the septum using the superior septal approach. The defect at the interatrial septum was reconstructed with pericardial patches. The pulmonary edema on the chest X-ray disappeared in the early postoperative period. In this report, we discussed a patient who was diagnosed with myxoma during the period of acute pulmonary edema. While this is usually fatal, this patient underwent a successful operation in which we safely removed the giant myxoid mass using the superior septal approach.

Keywords : Acute pulmonary edema; myxoma; superior septal approach