Cardiac primary lymphoma.

The primary cardiac lymphoma is extremely rare. A case is presented of a 60 year old female patient with non-Hodgkin lymphoma of probable primary card iac localization and with subsequent extension to peripheral lymph nodes. S he had had a febrile syndrome for 8 months. Two two-dimensional echocardiog rams gave negative results. Due to a syncope with atrial fibrillation, a tr ansesophageal echocardiogram was carried out, which showed tumors in both a tria, interatrial septum and right ventricle. The later appearance of right preauricular lymph nodes and left supraclavicular nodes led to a biopsy wh ich confirmed a diagnosis of diffuse non-Hodgkin lymphoma with large immuno blastic cells. The patient died 15 months after the first symptoms, having undergone 6 chemotherapy cycles. The autopsy showed remission of the macros copic lesions but presence of microscopic lesions in the cardiac chambers w ith histology and phenotypic markers identical to the ones found in the lym ph nodes.