Endocardial tuberculosis.

We report a 30-year-old male patient with persistent fever, history of stroke, and a left atrial mass. He was diagnosed as miliary pulmonary tuberculosis radiologically and had fever despite 2 months of antitubercular treatment. The mass was excised and fever resolved. Acid fast bacilli (AFB) were demonstrable on Ziehl Neelsen stain and routine histopathology. To the best of our knowledge, the visualization of AFB from an intracardiac lesion on ZN staining has not been reported earlier and tuberculosis must be considered in the differential diagnosis of left atrial masses.
PMID: 25282244 [PubMed - in process]

Source: The Annals of Thoracic Surgery - October 1, 2014 Category: Cardiovascular & Thoracic Surgery Authors: Kandachar P, Guin D, Mohanty S, Sinha N, George M, Nagaraj S, Fathima S, Lal N Tags: Ann Thorac Surg Source Type: research