Abstract
Background
Fatty masses of the heart are relatively uncommon. This report is about a rare case of extensive fat infiltration along the apical interventricular septum that causes separation of the right ventricular apex from left ventricular apex, simulating a bifid cardiac apex.
Case summary
The patient was a 58-year-old female who was admitted to the hospital because of palpitations and chest pain. A trasnsthoracic echocardiogram was performed and it showed a thickenned anterior pericardium so a cardiovascular magnetic resonance (CMR) was performed. CMR revealed a large amount of epicardial and pericardial fat without adipose tissue inside the right ventricle wall. In the cardiac apex this fat seemed a lipoma however CMR demonstrated the fat was not capsulated and besides, it extended, as if it were an infiltrative disorder, in the cardiac apex between both ventricles.
Patient was discharged with an implantable loop recorder (ILR) in order to ruled out ventricular arrhythmia.
During a two year follow-up, ILR has shown several symptomatic supraventricular paroxysmal tachycardia episodes and no other arrhythmic events have been reported. Also, the CMR has been repeated and it has shown similar results.
Discussion
Fatty masses of the heart are relatively uncommon. Among those masses are included cardiac lipomas, lipomatous infiltration of the right ventricle, arrhythmogenic right ventricular dysplasia (ARVD) and lipomatous hypertrophy of the interatrial septum. The findings in the CMR of our patient do not fulfill the criteria of the aforementioned disorders.
Our patient shows a pattern of unusual fatty infiltration pattern of unclear etiology. The prognostic value of this type of heart disease is unknown. In our patient, although the follow-up has not been very long, it does not seem to have had any relevant consequences, so far.
Conclusion
This is a rare case of a patient with a large amount of epicardial and pericardial fat that seems to infiltrate between both ventricular apex, as a bifid cardiac apex. It is apparently asymptomatic.
Abstract 108 Figure. CMR-Cardiac-fatty_EECHO-2019
RARE CASE OF ISOLATED RIGHT VENTRICULAR HYPERTROPHIC CARDIOMYOPATHY WITH DOUBLE CHAMBER RIGHT VENTRICLE MODERATOR BAND