<正>Papillary fibroelastoma

a rare primary benign tumor

can be found anywhere in the heart

but most commonly involves the cardiac valves.Most papillary fibroelastomas do not cause symptoms and are usually incidental found by routine echocardiograpby or at autopsy.However

with the advent of echocardiography

more and more patients are diagnosed in life.Early diagnosis of this condition becomes very important since it represents a surgically correctable cause for systemic emboli

stroke

myocardial infarction

and sudden cardiac death.The echocardiographic findings should be confirmed by histology because the clinical differential diagnoses includes myxoma

vegetation

thrombi

lipoma

and pseudopapillary fibroelastoma.We reported a case of papillary fibroelastoma of the aortic valve and presented a comprehensive review of the literature.