Purpose: Despite the review articles repeatedly published with respect to mitral valve myxomas, hardly could we find one based upon complete literature retrieval. We took an effort on complete literature retrieval and made a comprehensive review of the mitral valve myxomas.
Methods: An instant thorough literature retrieval of the heart myxoma was made by using the MEDLINE and EMBASE databases, as well as secondary references cited in the articles obtained from the MEDLINE search. In addition, we searched the Google and HighWire Press.
Results: The patients with mitral valve myxoma were young. Their major symptoms were cerebrovascular, cardiovascular, or constitutional. The tumors had small sizes, predilection of mitral leaflet location, solitary and pedicled nature, and good response to surgical resection.
Conclusion: These clinical characteristics of mitral valve myxoma may help the differential diagnosis between mitral valve myxoma and other valvular lesions, and help making a decision of a surgical treatment.