Cardiac tamponade in Medical Patients : Five years analysis at Prapokklao Hospital.

Abstract

Objective : To analyse the medical patients with cardiac tamponade, in terms of etiologies,clinical manifestations, radiologic and echocardiographic findings.

Materials and methods : Retrospective descriptive study of the medical records with diagnoses of cardiac tamponade from department of internal medicine, Prapokklao Hospital from October 1999 through September 2004. Diagnosis of cardiac tamponade was based on consistent clinical manifestations and echocardiographic findings of pericardial effusion and right ventricular diastolic collapse.

Results and conclusion : There were 22 cases of cardiac tamponade. The age ranged from 21 to 78 years. The most common cause was idiopathic pericarditis (45.5percent). The three most common clinical manifestations were tachypnea,dyspnea and tachycardia (100, 90.1 and 59.1 percent respectively). Chest roentgenograms revealed enlarged cardiac silhouette in all patients.Electrocardiograms revealed low QRS voltage, abnormalities of the T waves and abnormalities of the ST segments in 70, 60 and 25 percent respectively.This study provides information about cardiac tamponade in medical patients which differ from cardiac tamponade due to cardiac trauma.