Pericardial diseases six years clinical and echocardiographic study

Abstract EN

The pericardium is a fibroserous sac that surrounds the heart and great vessels and contain small amount of serous fluid, it has three vital functions but removal of the pericardium is still compatible with life.

Diseases of the pericardium are considered to be rare in cardiology practice and estimated to reach to 2% among cardiac diseases, and higher incidence was found among postmortem cases of 3.4%.

Investigations for cases with pericardial disease are rather many and in particular Echocardiography is quite valuable in confirmation of the presence of the disease and to study underlying cardiac status.

This study was carried out in Basra General Hospital- Cardiac unit over a period of six years to study the incidence and the types of pericardial diseases among cases studied by echocardiography.

The number of cases studied was 7890 over the study period of six years out of which there was 121 cases with pericardial involvement proved by echo study (1.6 %).

The cases with pericardial diseases were studied in detail for the etiological diagnosis and that include careful search in each case and the result was 108 (89%) cases with pericardial effusion; out of which malignancy, tuberculosis, and viral pericarditis are the leading causes, and 13 cases with other pericardial pathology.