CHRONIC CARDIAC COMPRESSION DUE TO CONSTRICTING PERICARDITIS

Abstract

In the realm of practical surgery the onlydirect operative attacks that may be made on the central circulatory system are for the relief of cardiac compression, acute or chronic. This comprises the removal of intrapericardial fluid, the prevention of its reaccumulation (including the suture of wounds of the heart), and the resection of constricting scar. The extraction of pulmonary emboli, the direct attack on valvular lesions and attempts to increase the blood supply of the heart are still within the domain of experimental surgery. A syndrome which has increasingly engaged the attention of clinicians, especially during the past fifteen years, is that caused by a lesion variously designated as adhesive pericarditis, Pick's disease, mediastinopericarditis, concretio pericardii, pericarditic pseudocirrhosis and a host of other terms descriptive of its pathologic anatomy. Volhard,¹Schmieden,²White,³Churchill⁴and others⁵have contributed important studies during the last ten years, but