A 26-year-old man was admitted to the emergency department of an American clinic complaining of acute severe pain in the legs and the inability to move his left leg. He had no previous health problems. Upon examination, there was a complete lack of motor function in the left leg, the pulse in the dorsal arteries of the feet was poorly palpable on both sides. Ultrasound with color Doppler showed no blood flow in the distal aorta. Computed tomography angiography revealed a saddle embolism of the aortoiliac junction. The patient underwent an emergency embolectomy, during which a jelly-like formation was removed from the vessel. Chirag Buch and Nilam Soni from the University of Texas Health Science Center in San Antonio shared this case in the New England Journal of Medicine.
A subsequent routine echocardiogram visualized a heterogeneous mass in the left atrium. The man underwent surgery and a loose villous growth was removed from this atrium. Histological examination revealed abundant mucopolysaccharide matrix with scattered islands of cells. Based on the examination data, the patient was diagnosed with acute occlusion of the abdominal aorta due to embolism by a fragment of left atrial myxoma, a relatively rare benign cardiac tumor. The man's recovery period was uneventful, and by the time of a follow-up examination two months later, he had already returned to work.