A 65-year-old man was admitted to his local hospital with troponin-positive acute coronary syndrome. The patient developed signs of acute heart failure and was immediately transferred to our center. Echocardiography demonstrated a pericardial mass (8 5 cm) with compression of the right atrium (Figure 1 and online-only Data Supplement Movie I) and a reduced contractility of the posterior left ve...

BACKGROUND Effusive-constrictive pericarditis is an uncommon pericardial syndrome characterized by concomitant tamponade, caused by tense pericardial effusion, and constriction, caused by the visceral pericardium. We conducted a prospective study of its clinical evolution and management. METHODS From 1986 through 2001, all patients with effusive-constrictive pericarditis were prospectively ev...

Partial defect of the pericardium combined with bronchogenic cyst is a very rare congenital anomaly. We describe the case of a 32-year-old man with a partial defect of the left pericardium and a bronchogenic cyst arising from the border of the pericardial defect. The cyst was successfully resected with the harmonic scalpel by three-port videothoracoscopic approach.

Congenital absence of the pericardium is a rare cardiac defect with variable clinical presentations and is usually discovered incidentally. The pathology may lead to serious complications such as incarceration of cardiac tissue, myocardial ischemia, aortic dissection or valvular insufficiency. Diagnosis is not difficult so long as some tips are remembered. We present the cases of two patients w...

A 30 year old man presented with symptoms of constrictive pericarditis. Echocardiography and computed tomography showed a mass extending from the pericardium to surround the heart and penetrating the left ventricular apex. An unresectable pleomorphic liposarcoma arising from the pericardium was found at thoracotomy.

The clinical histories of two patients with angiosarcoma of the pericardium are described. Both were previously well young men who presented with cardiac tamponade caused by haemorrhagic pericardial effusions. If a pericardiectomy is undertaken for diagnosis, wide excision of the pericardium is recommended. This will provide a large specimen for histological examination and may prevent subseque...

A 30-year old woman presented with complaints of chest pain, palpitation and echocardiographic findings of a constrictive cardiac haemodynamic pattern with calcification and thickening of the pericardium (Fig. 1). She underwent successful pericardiectomy. An intraoperative image of a typical caseification necrosis surrounding the whole pericardium, with a positive culture of mycobacterium tuber...

We present a case of a patient who underwent a late penile prosthesis implant using bovine pericardium as a complement to the tunica albuginea involved in intense fibrosis that destroyed the corpus cavernosum after an infectious manifestation. The advantages of using bovine pericardium in the substitution of the tunica albuginea are discussed and its first use as a penile prosthesis lining is r...

BACKGROUND The study aim was to evaluate the immune reaction, difference of degenerative calcification, and anti-calcification effect of decellularization with or without α-galactosidase in bovine pericardium and porcine heart valves, using an α1,3-galactosyltransferase (α-Gal) knockout (KO) mouse model. METHODS In order to elucidate the anti-calcification effect of decellularization with or ...

PATIENT Female, 62 FINAL DIAGNOSIS: Tricuspid regurgitation Symptoms: Dyspnea exertional • fatigue • leg edema MEDICATION - Clinical Procedure: - Specialty: Cardiology. OBJECTIVE Challenging differential diagnosis. BACKGROUND Tricuspid regurgitation (TR) can mimic some hemodynamic findings of constrictive pericarditis (CP), due to the restraining effect of the enlarged right heart on inta...