Constrictive pericarditis – still an overlooked entity

Abstract

Constrictive pericarditis still remains a challenge for clinicians because it is a rare disease, with a long symptom-free period that can make it difficult to establish the relation between etiology and first clinical presentation. Multimodality imaging is the modern approach for diagnostic work-up and clinical management. In this context, we report a typical case of constrictive pericardial disease, first misconstrued as decompensated liver cirrhosis, and later unsuccessfully treated as congestive heart failure, without a clear etiology. By reporting this case, we also aimed to highlight the importance of some complementary diagnostic techniques in refining the preoperative assessment, in order to adequately address a patient to pericardiectomy, the only curative treatment.