A 4-year-old girl with seronegative systemic juvenile rheumatoid arthritis developed acute cardiac tamponade. Pericardiocentesis and systemic corticosteroids resulted in complete recovery of the pericardial involvement. This was followed by complete remission of rheumatoid disease.

Pneumopericardium demonstrated by radiolucency within the pericardial space. Online Video 1 demonstrates this finding in motion. A 44-year-old man with prior Nissen fundoplication presented with chest pain, hypotension, tachycardia, and inferior ST-segment elevation on electrocardiography. Coronary angiography demonstrated normal coronaries, and left ventriculography revealed radiolucency in th...

A 65-year-old female known to have type 2 diabetes, with no significant past medical history, had presented another hospital a 2-week history of progressive dyspnoea, orthopnoea and, lower limb oedema. Echocardiography revealed large pericardial effusion echocardiographic signs increased intrapericardial pressure. An emergency pericardiocentesis was performed. After 1 week, the patient admitted...

We present a case of cardiac tamponade following umbilical venous catheterization in a neonate, an uncommon, yet potentially fatal complication. Timely diagnosis by echocardiography and urgent pericardiocentesis proved lifesaving.

OBJECTIVES This study aims to determine the minimum pericardial fluid volume necessary for adequate cytologic diagnosis. METHODS We identified 480 pericardiocentesis specimens, divided them by volume into six bins, and calculated the malignancy fraction (percentage of malignant diagnoses) for each bin. We then combined bins at various cutoffs to determine a minimum threshold volume and evalua...

Clinical and hemodynamic observations are reported in 13 patients who demonstrated a distinct pathophysiologic form of compressive pericardial disease characterized by effusion into a free pericardial space associated with constriction of the heart by the visceral pericardium. The pericardial disease was idiopathic (nine patients) or subsequent to radiotherapy (four patients), with a maximal du...