title: Pneumopericardium diagnosis by point-of-care ultrasonography.
abstract: Focused cardiac ultrasound by the emergency physician has become a fundamental tool to expedite the diagnostic evaluation of the patient at bedside. We report the case of a patient admitted to the emergency department for respiratory distress. He was examined by an emergency physician who performed a bedside echocardiography. Bright spots were seen rapidly moving along the pericardial layer during diastole with comet-tail artifacts extending across the whole image of the heart and disappearing during systole, suggesting pneumopericardium.
authors.affiliation: Department of Anesthesiology, Critical Care Medicine, Pain and Emergency, Nîmes University Hospital, Nîmes, France.
authors.forename: Xavier
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Bobbia
authors.forename: Pierre Géraud
authors.initials: PG
authors.lastname: Claret
authors.forename: Laurent
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Muller
authors.forename: Jean Emmanuel
authors.initials: JE
authors.lastname: de La Coussaye
mesh_terms: D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D011026:Pneumopericardium / Q000000981:diagnostic imaging*; D019095:Point-of-Care Systems; D014057:Tomography, X-Ray Computed; D014463:Ultrasonography