Complementary Value of Multimodal Contrast-Enhanced Ultrasound in Serial Evaluation of Rapidly Progressive Infant Cardiac Fibroma: A Fatal Case Report and Literature Review.

Infant cardiac fibroma is a rare fatal myocardial tumor with infiltrative growth, hard to distinguish from rhabdomyoma via routine imaging. We report a 3-month-old male infant prenatally diagnosed with left ventricular fibroma, who died of irreversible heart failure after subtotal resection. Serial contrast-enhanced ultrasound (CEUS) combined with transthoracic echocardiography (TTE) provided complementary perfusion information: it guided surgical strategy, detected microscopic residual tumor undetectable on unenhanced ultrasound, and identified early subclinical left ventricular dysfunction. However, CEUS failed to reverse the fatal clinical trajectory. This case demonstrates the auxiliary value and key limitations of CEUS for infant cardiac tumor assessment.