The Journal of Thoracic and Cardiovascular Surgery, Vol 70, 143-146, Copyright © 1975 by The American Association for Thoracic Surgery and The Western Thoracic Surgical Association
Cystic thymoma simulating contrictive pericarditis. The role of echocardiography in the differential diagnosis
M Schloss, I Kronzon, PM Gelber, GE Reed and A Berger
A case is presented of a 60-year-old woman with fatigue, dyspnea, and chest
pain. A chest x-ray film revealed an abnormal cardiac silhouette.
Echocardiography revealed a large, echo-free area with well-demarcated,
discrete borders adjacent to the right heart border. This structure
decreased in size with inspiration and did not show pulsatile cardiac
motion. Cardiac catheterization confirmed the extracardiac nature of the
lesion and also showed a "constrictive" pattern with equalization of
diastolic pressures. Surgical exploration revealed a large cystic thymoma.
With removal of the tumor, intracardiac pressures returned to normal.