CARDIAC CAVERNOUS HEMANGIOMA MIMICKING PERICARDIAL CYST - ATYPICAL ECHOCARDIOGRAPHIC APPEARANCE OF A RARE CARDIAC TUMOR

Cavernous hemangioma is a rare tumor with infrequent cardiac involveme nt. Preoperative or antemortem diagnosis may be difficult. Several pri or case reports have described echocardiographic findings of cavernous hemangioma. We report here a 50-year-old white female patient with th is tumor. Transesophageal echocardiography detected a mass with an ech ocardiographic appearance not previously described for cavernous heman gioma. The tumor appeared as a large echolucent unilocular cystic mass , leading to an erroneous preoperative diagnosis of pericardial cyst. This previously unreported finding should be recognized by echocardiog raphers in the evaluation of cardiac masses.