Making “ghost tumors” visible by contrast medium administration: MR imaging findings of pediculated mobile intracardiac tumors

Although the MR imaging features of cardiac masses and their differential diagnosis are well defined in the literature, we present a report of two lately observed myxoma cases, which were not seen on non-contrasted sequences, but were well visualized after contrast administration. From this point of view, we think that it would be adequate to call these tumors as “ghost tumors”. To the best of our knowledge, this is the very first report of MR imaging findings of mobile pediculated intracardiac masses, and it is our belief that mobile intracardiac masses do not cause a phase difference and therefore cannot be observed on non-contrasted sequences. Furthermore, we would like to stress that contrast administration is required in order to differentiate “ghost tumors” from completely resolved intracardiac thrombus.