Presentation
Chest pain with tightness, difficulty with breathing. Fatigue.
Patient Data
Age: 40 years
Gender: Female
From the case:
Massive pericardial effusion
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Axial unenhanced and contrast-enhanced chest CT demonstrate a relatively evenly distributed massive pericardial effusion. The depth of the effusion is greater than 40 mm.
Posteriorly displaced epicardial fat pad by large amount of low attenuation fluid surrounding the heart.
Small volume left pleural effusion is due to congestive cardiac failure.
Case Discussion
Massive pericardial effusion in a patient with end-stage renal disease in uremic state.
The patient's condition worsened due to hemodynamic derangement as she clinically elicited signs of cardiac tamponade.
She underwent immediate pericardiocentesis.
Causes of pericardial effusion include (not exhaustive):
- Infection/ Inflammatory
- Autoimmune (Scleroderma, SLE)
- Uremia
- Drug-induced
- Trauma/ iatrogenic
- Malignancy
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