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Severe Constrictive Pericarditis After Parvovirus B19 and Human Herpes Virus 6 Infection in a 9-Year-Old Girl

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Abstract

We report on a 9-year-old girl who developed signs of congestive heart failure with significant ascites due to constrictive pericarditis. Cardiac catheterization was performed to establish the diagnosis and to rule out restrictive cardiomyopathy. Endomyocardial biopsies were positive for activated macrophages and small-vessel disease, but no viral genomes were detected. Open pericardectomy was performed and histopathologic examination of the resected thickened pericardium showed extensive fibrosis and hyaline degeneration. A combined infection with parvovirus B19 (PVB19) and human herpes virus 6 (HHV6; subtype B) was proven within the resected pericardium. We suggest that local HHV6-induced immunosuppression enhanced the PVB19 infection, thus resulting in chronic infection and leading to constrictive pericarditis.

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Abbreviations

PVB19:

Parvovirus B19

HHV6:

human Herpes virus 6

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Conflict of interest

The authors have no conflicts of interest to disclose.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Pediatric Cardiology and Intensive Care Medicine, Georg-August-University Hospital Göttingen, University of Göttingen, Robert-Koch-Str 40, 37075, Göttingen, Germany

    David Backhoff, Michael Steinmetz & Ulrich Krause

  2. Department of Thoracic Cardiovascular Surgery, Georg-August-University Hospital Göttingen, University of Göttingen, Göttingen, Germany

    Wolfgang Ruschewski

  3. Department of Pediatrics, Kassel School of Medicine, Kassel, Germany

    Barbara Stastny

  4. Department of Molecular Pathology, University Hospital of Tübingen, University of Tübingen, Tübingen, Germany

    Reinhard Kandolf

Authors
  1. David Backhoff
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  2. Michael Steinmetz
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  3. Wolfgang Ruschewski
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  4. Barbara Stastny
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  5. Reinhard Kandolf
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  6. Ulrich Krause
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to David Backhoff.

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Backhoff, D., Steinmetz, M., Ruschewski, W. et al. Severe Constrictive Pericarditis After Parvovirus B19 and Human Herpes Virus 6 Infection in a 9-Year-Old Girl. Pediatr Cardiol 34, 2089–2092 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00246-013-0755-8

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00246-013-0755-8

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