Tag Archives: pericardial effusion

Case presentation A 45-year-old man presented to the emergency department with a 10-day history of feeling unwell, non-exertional chest tightness, shortness of breath and reduced exercise tolerance. He found no relief with sublingual glyceryl trinitrate and complained of a productive, green cough. A COVID-19 nasopharyngeal assay prior to admission was negative for SARS-CoV-2. Past medical history included type 2 diabetes mellitus, hypertension and stable angina. There was no significant history of tobacco, alcohol or illicit substance use. On examination the patient was haemodynamically stable with positive findings of quiet heart sounds and

Introduction Pregnancy does not show any specific predisposition to pericardial diseases. The more common form of pericardial involvement in pregnancy is a benign mild pericardial effusion, the incidence of which increases with duration of pregnancy reaching about 40% by the third trimester, resolving uneventfully after delivery.1 Larger effusions should raise clinical concern for an infection, autoimmune disorder or malignancy, which occur sporadically in pregnancy. We report the case of a 34-year-old term pregnant woman who presented with a massive pericardial effusion with cardiac tamponade. Case A 34-year-old woman presented to the emerge

Case report A 19-year-old white male non-smoker without any significant past medical, travel or drug history presented to Accident & Emergency with a one-week history of dry cough, muscle aches, night sweats, and left-sided pleuritic chest pain. On admission his temperature was 38.4°C, pulse 118 beats per minute and blood pressure 130/70 mmHg. The jugular venous pressure was elevated 5 cm above the sternal angle. He had normal heart sounds with a pericardial rub. There were no other signs and urine testing was normal. Figure 1. Chest X-ray showing cardiomegaly His inflammatory markers were raised with C-reactive protein (CRP) of 174 mg/L

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