title: Cardiac tamponade related to a coronary injury by a pericardial calcification: an unusual complication.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Cardiac tamponade is a rare but severe complication of pericardial effusion with a poor prognosis. Prompt diagnosis using transthoracic echocardiography allows guiding initial therapeutic management. Although etiologies are numerous, cardiac tamponade is more often due to a hemopericardium. Rarely, a coronary injury may result in such a hemopericardium with cardiac tamponade. Coronary artery aneurysm are the main etiologies but blunt, open chest trauma or complication of endovascular procedures have also been described.
  
  
  METHODS
  A 83-year-old hypertensive man presented for dizziness and hypotension. The patient had oliguria and mottled skin. Transthoracic echocardiography disclosed a circumferential pericardial effusion with a compressed right atrium, confirmed by contrast-enhanced thoracic CT scan. A pig-tail catheter allowed to withdraw 500 mL of blood, resulting in a transient improvement of hemodynamics. Rapidly, recurrent hypotension prompted a reoperation. An active bleeding was identified at the level of the retroventricular coronary artery. The pericardium was thickened with several "sharping" calcified plaques in the vicinity of the bleeding areas. On day 2, vasopressors were stopped and the patient was successfully extubated. Final diagnosis was a spontaneous cardiac tamponade secondary to a coronary artery injury attributed to a "sharping"calcified pericardial plaque.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Cardiac tamponade secondary to the development of a hemopericardium may develop as the result of a myocardial and coronary artery injury induced by a calcified pericardial plaque.
authors.affiliation: Service de Réanimation Polyvalente, CHU Dupuytren, 2 avenue Martin Luther King, Limoges 87042, France.
authors.forename: Anne
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Cypierre
authors.forename: Francis
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Pesteil
authors.forename: Claude
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Cassat
authors.forename: François
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Parraf
authors.forename: Rémy
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Bellier
authors.forename: Lionel
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Ursulet
authors.forename: Claire
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Eveno
authors.forename: Philippe
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Vignon
authors.forename: Bruno
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: François
mesh_terms: D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D002114:Calcinosis / Q000150:complications*; D002305:Cardiac Tamponade / Q000209:etiology*; D009202:Cardiomyopathies / Q000150:complications*; D004452:Echocardiography; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D010490:Pericardial Effusion / Q000000981:diagnostic imaging / Q000209:etiology*; D010496:Pericardium / Q000000981:diagnostic imaging / Q000473:pathology