OBJECTIVE To investigate the effectiveness of X-ray and echocardiography (ECHO) as a diagnostic tool for cardiac tamponade in adult cardiac surgery patients. METHODS Thirty five coronary artery bypass and graft surgery patients who developed cardiac tamponade at Cleveland clinic foundation, were included in this study. Their diagnosis was confirmed at the time of re-exploration in the operati...

2 Bernath GA, Cogswell TL, Hoffman RG, et al. Influences on the distribution of blood flow during cardiac tamponade in the conscious dog. Circ Res 1987; 60:72–81 3 Kingma JG Jr, Martin J, Rouleau JR. Acute tamponade alters subendoand subepicardial pressure-flow relations differently during vasodilation. Am J Physiol 1994; 267:H133–H138 4 Labovitz AJ, Anthonis DM, Cravens TL, et al. Validation o...

SUMMARY Cardiac tamponade that occurs late after cardiac surgery (7 days) is relatively uncommon but potentially fatal. We analyzed its incidence, clinical course and relationship to the postpericardiotomy syndrome in 1290 consecutive adult patients who survived surgery. Criteria for diagnosis of cardiac tamponade were (1) elevated jugular venous pressure, (2) hypotension or decreased cardiac i...

A patient developed acute, severe hemodynamic deterioration five days after an aortic valve replacement. Cardiac catheterization revealed a markedly elevated right atrial pressure but a normal right ventricular end-diastolic pressure. Angiography revealed an extrinsic mass causing compression of the right atrium and the tricuspid anulus. A large clot overlying the right atrium and ventricle was...

A case report of a patient presenting in cardiac tamponade that was subsequently diagnosed as being secondary to malignancy of unknown primary. The patient was treated by urgent pericardiocentesis, followed by subsequent formation of a subxiphoid pericardial window. He was discharged home and given palliative chemotherapy. Malignant pericardial effusions are common, but it is rare for a patient...

Introduction In a normovolemic patient, low cardiac output after cardiac surgery may be a result of myocardial ischaemia and/ or pericardial tamponade. However, without any objective evidence of ischaemia alongwith no signs of pericardial tamponade or regional wall motion abnormality on transthoracic echocardiogram (TTE), the diagnosis remains ambiguous. Computed tomography (CT scan) of the che...

Late onset seroma is a rare post-operative complication occurring after various surgeries including thymectomy. Most cases are asymptomatic; however, seromas occurring in the mediastinal cavity may cause compression symptoms including airway compression or cardiac tamponade. We present a 62-year-old male with a history of thymectomy for myasthenia gravis who presented with cardiac tamponade sev...

Precursor T-cell lymphoblastic lymphoma (LBL) and T-cell acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) are considered same disease with different clinical presentations. Clinically, a case is defined as lymphoma if there is a mass lesion in the mediastinum or elsewhere and < 25% blasts in the bone marrow. Whereas, bone marrow with > 25% blasts with or without mediastinal masses is classified as T-cell ALL...

Clinical reports indicate that right ventricular diastolic collapse (RVDC) is associated with cardiac tamponade. To assess the hemodynamic abnormalities associated with RVDC, we studied six chronically instrumented conscious dogs (group A) with two-dimensional echocardiography during cardiac tamponade induced by continuous saline infusion into the pericardial space. We recorded cardiac output (...

Central venous catheter (CVC) insertion rarely causes cardiac tamponade due to perforation. Although it is a rare complication, it can be lethal if not identified early. We report a case of cardiac tamponade caused by internal jugular (IJ) central venous catheter (CVC) insertion using a soft J-tipped guide wire which is considered safe and rarely implicated with cardiac tamponade. A bedside tra...