Pericarditis

Constrictive pericarditis

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Constrictive (compressing) pericarditis is often a complication of exudative pericarditis and rarely develops independently. This disease is characterized by a tight adhesion between both sheets of the pericardium (heart bag). The pericardium becomes thicker and denser, resulting in lost mobility and elasticity while reducing the heart muscle. Some time later, the Packed pericardium the accumulation of calcium salts, which leads to fusion of the outer shell and the heart: the heart muscle is much more difficult. When calcium becomes too much, the pericardium hardens, the heart becomes armored.

Constrictive pericarditis leads to disruption of blood circulation: the large veins are filled with blood, and the chambers of the heart it fills bad (blood stagnates in the systemic circulation). Constrictive pericarditis may occur due to rheumatism, tuberculosis, other infections, trauma to the chest, kidney failure and blood disorders. He may also be the final form of exudative pericarditis. Usually the onset of the disease before the manifestation of overt clinical symptoms and the surgery takes from one month to couple of years. Constrictive pericarditis occurs in three stages: primary, severe and degenerative. The initial stage is characterized by weakness and shortness of breath. Expressed stage has symptoms such as a swelling of the veins of the neck, puffiness of face and ascites. At the stage of dystrophy develops hypoproteinemia (low total protein content in the blood), fluid builds up in tissues, edema, weakened immune system.

The symptoms of constrictive pericarditis

When this disease develops independently, at first it often has no clinical manifestations. In humans, there are complaints only when the systemic circulation has already formed blood stasis.

Constrictive pericarditis is manifested by extension of neck veins, edema of lower limbs, feeling of heaviness and squeezing in the hypochondrium, shortness of breath, heart pain, fatigue, loss of appetite, weight loss. Patients increases the volume of the stomach, quickens the pulse and reduced blood pressure, develops ascites (fluid accumulation in abdominal cavity), increased venouspressure.

To detect constrictive pericarditis using fluoroscopy only in the later stages, therefore, a reliable early diagnosis is most often made with an echocardiogram.

Treatment of constrictive pericarditis

When constrictive pericarditis heart damage are mechanical in nature, so treatment does not use medicines. The only method to avoid squeezing of the heart is surgery. A significant portion of pericardium is cut off (pericardectomy). Before surgery the patient is prescribed a diet with a low salt content, use diuretics. The predictions of this surgery good, patients almost always recover completely; the mortality rate is low (5-15 %). In many ways, the recovery depends on the degree of atrofirovany of the myocardium, kidney and liver.