INTRODUCTION
Benign cardiac neoplasms are substantially rare and among these
intracardiac cysts filled with blood are even more uncommon; indeed,
they have not even been mentioned in a recent review of cardiac tumors
reported by Tyebally et al.1. However, mainly owing to
advancement in diagnostic techniques, with a widespread use of and
accessibility to multimodality imaging, an increase in the diagnosis of
cardiac or pericardial masses has been observed recently and is expected
to further grow in the future1. Intracardiac blood
cysts (BCs) are commonly found in newborns and infants being rare after
the first year of life, they mainly involve the cardiac valves and
generally disappear during growth2. In adults they may
occasionally be diagnosed, are usually located on all cardiac valves and
chambers, the mitral valve (MV) being the most frequently involved;
despite absence of histological malignancy BCs of the heart valves have
been reported to cause life-threatening complications with even severe
sequelae.
There is still uncertainty on the origin of BCs and controversy on
whether medical treatment with continuous clinical and echocardiographic
patient follow-up should be preferred to immediate surgical removal. The
present review, analysing the published cases, was undertaken with the
aim of assessing the incidence, evaluating the clinical presentations
and discussing the treatment of BCs involving the cardiac valves in
adults.