Pericardial effusions are not uncommon in rheumatoid arthritis (RA); however, they are rarely the presenting symptom of the disease. We describe a 55-year-old female who presented to the emergency department with complaints of chest pain and dyspnea on exertion. Initial workup revealed a medium-sized pericardial effusion. The wide spectrum of etiologies, including infectious and non-infectious ...

Severe pericardial effusion is a rare complication of bacterial pneumonia and it usually disappears under medical treatment. Herein we report a case of a girl with a congenital immunodeficient syndrome and bacterial pneumonia, who developed recurrent and life-threatening pericardial effusion refractory to medical treatment. She was finally treated with pericardiectomy.

Pneumococcal pericarditis complicated by a malignant effusion has not been reported previously. We experienced an independent 62-year-old man with lung cancer who was hospitalized for acute onset of atrial flutter and moderate pericardial effusion. He was afebrile; however, pericardiocentesis showed Streptococcus pneumoniae and malignant squamous cells in purulent pericardial fluid. This case s...

BACKGROUND Purulent pericarditis is a rare but life-threatening illness. Often, it may be masked by the primary infectious etiology like pneumonia, endocarditis, or CNS infection, leading to a delay in diagnosis and treatment. Echocardiography is the modality of choice for estimating the presence and size of pericardial effusion and detecting presence of tamponade. CASE REPORT We present a ca...

RATIONALE A 35-year old Chinese female was admitted to hospital with refractory pericardial effusions 10 days post mitral valve replacement via median sternotomy. We performed an exploratory resternotomy and found lymphatic leakage on the surface of the diaphragm which was continuously emitting a light yellow fluid. PATIENT CONCERNS The patient complained of no obvious discomfort except for t...

BACKGROUND Umbilical venous lines are sometimes complicated with pleural and or pericardial effusion, often due to line migration. CASE CHARACTERISTICS Bilateral chylous pleural effusion without pericardial effusion in a 28 weeks, extremely low birth infant who was on total parenteral nutrition. OBSERVATIONS/INVESTIGATIONS Investigations including chest x ray and 2D echocardiogram showed bi...

To cite: Kumar S, Lata S, Patidar Y. Thorax Published Online First: [please include Day Month Year] doi:10.1136/thoraxjnl-2013203954 Pleuropericardial effusion as a presenting feature raises the possibility of infectious, neoplastic and connective tissue disorders. However, unusual pathophysiological mechanisms may sometimes pose a diagnostic conundrum in certain clinical contexts. Simultaneous...

Pericardial effusion in a patient with a history of cancer should always prompt a hypothesis of malignant involvement. We report the case of a 66-year-old white woman presenting with pericardial effusion 25 years after a mastectomy for ductal breast carcinoma. This is one of the cases with the latest recurrence ever reported.

A 74-year-old man had typical yellow nail syndrome, associated with pericardial effusion and hyperimmunoglobulinemia (IgG 3,179 mg/dl, IgM 402 mg/dl). A search of the literature fails to reveal a previously reported case of yellow nail syndrome associated with pericardial effusion.

Background Although during the past years a constant decreasing trend of extrapulmonary tuberculosis (TB) was registered in Romania, the number of reported cases of pericardial effusion TB remained steady at 40-50 cases annually, most of them in association with pleural effusion. Pericardial TB is a potentially lethal complication of TB and it is associated with high rates of morbidity and mort...