A 61-year-old male had complained of cough and dyspnea on effort, with right pleural effusion. Computed tomography demonstrated a calcific pericardium surrounding the entire heart, with thickening of 10 mm. Cardiac catheterization showed no coronary disease, but a dip-and-plateau of the pressure curve of both ventricles. We diagnosed congestive heart failure due to chronic constrictive pericard...

Many factors may affect the interventricular septal motion. This study measures the effect of pericardiectomy on septal motion in 9 patients who were evaluated 1 week to 58 months after pericardiectomy. Echocardiography was performed with the patient in recumbent position with the special care to record motion of the muscular septum and not that of the aorta. No patient had left bundle branch b...

BACKGROUND Constrictive pericarditis is an uncommon disease that prevents the normal diastolic filling of the heart and pericardiectomy is the only satisfactory treatment. METHODS AND RESULTS The clinical characteristics and treatment of patients who underwent pericardiectomy for constrictive pericarditis (n = 23) were reviewed. Surgery was performed via left anterolateral thoracotomy plus tr...

Pericardiectomy is well recognized as a logical and rewarding form of treatment for constrictive pericarditis. The historical background of the operation has been fully described by Sellors (1946) and it is not felt that the series of cases to be presented here has anything to add to the clinical picture of constrictive pericarditis so fully described by Evans and Jackson (1952). There are cert...

Importance. Constrictive pericarditis is a rare clinical entity that frequently necessitates surgical intervention. Here we present a case of biventricular failure due to stress cardiomyopathy after pericardiectomy. This is an extremely rare complication that is not well described and does not have a definitive mechanism. Observations. A 40-year-old Ecuadorian woman who was found to have constr...