Heart Transplant Research Today is a free monthly online journal that collates and summarizes the latest research about Heart Transplant, including details on risks, prognosis, procedure, surgery, organ donation.

Sonolucent space posterior to left atrium: unusual echocardiographic appearance in a cardiac transplant patient.

Malhotra A, Khouzam RN, Minderman D, D'Cruz IA

Memphis VA Medical Center and University of Tennessee Health Science Center, Memphis, Tennessee 38104, USA.

The usual echocardiographic appearances of the atria in heart transplant patients are well known. We report a case of an 81-year-old man with a 16-year-old cardiac transplant who showed a "new" echocardiographic left atrial abnormality. Two-dimensional echocardiography showed a large sonolucent space behind the donor left atrium (DLA), which was at first perplexing. This space, the distorted and partly displaced recipient left atrium (RLA), could be shown to communicate with the donor left atrium, by the use of unconventional imaging and by optison opacification.

Published 2 August 2005 in Echocardiography, 22(7): 603-5.
Full-text of this article is available online (may require subscription).

© 2005-2008 Heart Transplant Research Today. All Rights Reserved.