Cardiac tamponade resulting from trauma--induced effusive pericarditis.

摘要

Penetrating chest trauma is an uncommon cause of pericarditis. Dressier et al. in 1956 showed that patients with postcardiac injuries subsequently developed pericarditis as a result of an autoimmune reaction, which is the principle accepted pathophysiological manner of trauma-induced pericarditis. Schweiter et al. in 2001 showed that traumatic chest injuries can even lead to constrictive pericarditis causing clinical deterioration 24 days after the initial insult, a series of events previously considered to occur months or years after injury. In this case report, we present a patient with development of effusive pericarditis 7 days after penetrating injury requiring surgical intervention but with no evidence of cardiac injury.