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Pneumopericardium: a rare complication following pericardiocentesis

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Indian Journal of Thoracic and Cardiovascular Surgery Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

Pneumopericardium is the presence of air in the pericardial cavity. It is a rare case entity that has been reported most commonly after trauma, or spontaneously without any underlying cause in a healthy adult. Pneumopericardium following pericardiocentesis has been rarely reported in the literature. Pneumopericardium is often self-resolving and rarely requires a pericardial drain for treatment. We report a case of pneumopericardium presented with tamponade physiology following pericardiocentesis for tubercular pericardial effusion, requiring emergency pericardiectomy.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Cardiovascular and Thoracic Surgery, King George’s Medical University, Lucknow, U.P., India

    Ajay Kumar Pandey, Sushil Kumar Singh, Vijayant Devenraj, Sarvesh Kumar & Vikas Singh

Authors
  1. Ajay Kumar Pandey
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  2. Sushil Kumar Singh
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  3. Vijayant Devenraj
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  4. Sarvesh Kumar
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  5. Vikas Singh
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Sushil Kumar Singh.

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Statement of human and animal rights

All procedures performed in this study on human participants were in accordance with the ethical standards of the institutional ethics committee of King George’s Medical University, Lucknow, and with the 1964 Helsinki declaration and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards.

This article does not contain any studies with animals performed by any of the authors.

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Informed consent was obtained from the patient included in the study.

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The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.

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Pandey, A.K., Singh, S.K., Devenraj, V. et al. Pneumopericardium: a rare complication following pericardiocentesis. Indian J Thorac Cardiovasc Surg 35, 493–495 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12055-018-00785-9

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12055-018-00785-9

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