Congenital defects of the pericardium are considered rare. Until 1979 , the reported cases were only about 200.1 Total absence of the left pericardium is the most common defect2 and less common is a partial defect of the left pericardium. Other types, i.e. isolated right-sided defects, total pericardial absence and diaphragmatic pericardial defects are very rare.3 Before the last decade, t...

STUDY OBJECTIVE The purpose of this study was to evaluate the diagnostic value of low voltage with PR-segment and ST-T wave changes in determining the amount of clinically silent pericardial effusion detected in a routine echocardiography. DESIGN Consecutive case series analysis. SETTING Noninvasive cardiology department of a university hospital. PATIENTS Among 8,041 consecutive patients ...

INTRODUCTION In general, pericardial diseases in small animal practice are rare, with pericardial effusion being the most commonly encountered pericardial disease. Septic pericarditis, although well recognised in cattle and humans, has rarely been reported in either the dog or cat. Septic pericarditis can result from pleural or pulmonary infections, secondary to trauma, or from haematogenous sp...

Surgical creation of a pericardial window has been a standard procedure for relieving symptoms of patients presenting with recurrent pericardial effusion. In this report we describe the application of Multitrack balloon catheter for creating a pericardial window in a patient who had recurrent pericardial effusion with tamponade as a result of advance malignant disease of breast.

Acute pericardial diseases include acute pericarditis and cardiac tamponade. Both conditions can be associated with acute hemodynamic instability or cardiac failure and require immediate diagnostic workup and treatment. The pericardium surrounds the heart with two layers. The outer fi brous layer is called the parietal pericardium; the inner layer, which covers the cardiac surface, is the serou...

Pericardial tuberculosis (TB) is associated with high therapy failure and high mortality rates. Antibiotics have to penetrate to site of infection at sufficient non-protein bound concentrations, and then enter bacteria to inhibit intracellular biochemical processes. The antibiotic concentrations achieved in pericardial fluid in TB pericarditis have never been measured before. We recruited two c...

BACKGROUND Pericardial fat has been implicated in the pathogenesis of obesity-related cardiovascular disease. Proposed mechanisms may be relevant in right heart failure, but relationships between pericardial fat and right ventricular (RV) morphology have not been explored. METHODS The Multi-Ethnic Study of Atherosclerosis is a prospective cohort that enrolled participants without clinical car...

BACKGROUND The clinical significance of pericardial biopsy is controversial. The aim of this study was to assess the feasibility and diagnostic value of 3 approaches to pericardial biopsy: fluoroscopic control and standard sampling, pericardioscopy guidance with standard sampling, and pericardioscopy guidance with extensive sampling. METHODS AND RESULTS Forty-nine subsequent patients with a l...

Congenital pericardial defects are rare and asymptomatic for both partial and complete defects. However, some patients can experience syncope, arrhythmia, and chest pain. When a patient experiences a symptom, it may be caused by herniation and dynamic compression or torsion of a heart structure including the coronary arteries. Diagnosis of a congenital pericardial defect may be difficult, espec...

INTRODUCTION There are various aetiologies for recurrent pericardial effusions. Malignancy is the commonest cause in the West, but in Asia and sub-Saharan Africa, tuberculosis is common and contributes towards a high prevalence of tuberculous recurrent pericardial effusions. METHODS In our hospital-based descriptive study of 32 patients, we looked into various characteristics of recurrent per...