Frans Ebenezer E, Nanda Navin C, Patel Vinod, Vengala Srinivas, Mehmood Farhat, Fonbah William S, Bodiwala Kunal
Division of Cardiovascular Diseases, University of Alabama at Birmingham, Birmingham, AL 35249, USA.
Echocardiography. 2005 Jul;22(6):533-5. doi: 10.1111/j.1540-8175.2005.50017.x.
We report a case of a middle-aged woman in whom a transesophageal echocardiogram showed a mass-like lesion posteriorly near the descending thoracic aorta. We were able to make a definitive diagnosis of this mass as a hiatal hernia because of a thick inner lining measuring 6-9 mm in thickness similar to the stomach mucosa, and the presence of a few microbubbles within the mass. In addition, the microbubbles increased considerably after 10 cc of agitated normal saline flush via a nasogastric tube.