Impressive Echocardiographic Images of a Mitral Valve Aneurysm

A 77-year-old woman with a fractured femur was referred to our hospital because preoperative echocardiography raised suspicion of a mitral valve tumor. She had no history of unknown fever or heart murmur. Transthoracic and transesophageal echocardiography showed severe mitral regurgitation and aortic regurgitation. A mobile lesion that appeared to be a cystic tumor (14×15 mm) was on the posterior mitral leaflet (Figure 1 and Movie in the online-only Data Supplement). The lesion had no color Doppler signal inside. Computed tomography showed a cystic mass with homogeneously enhanced contents (Figure 2). During the period of recovery from her hip surgery, the patient developed a sporadic febrile illness, and Enterococcus faecium was cultured from a blood …