Restoration of Normal Intracardiac Pressures after Extensive Pericardiectomy for Constrictive Pericarditis

Abstract

In each of seven patients studied by cardiac catheterization more than 2 weeks after extensive pericardiectomy, performed because of constrictive pericarditis, normal right heart pressure-pulse contours were demonstrated. The extensiveness of pericardial removal seems the most likely explanation for the normal catheterization findings, which contrast with demonstration by other workers of persistence for periods up to 2 years of the "W"-shaped atrial pressures and high end-diastolic ventricular pressures characteristic of pericardial constriction. Clinical findings, abnormal right heart pressures, and surgical considerations are presented for a total of 11 patients with constrictive pericarditis who were subjected to pericardiectomy between 1955 and 1960.