0168: Profiles of pericarditis in internal medicine: about 15 cases

IntroductionThe pericarditis is an inflammation of the pericardium accompanied or not by a pericardial effusion. Its etiopathogeny is variable. Through this work we describe the clinical and paraclinical characteristics of the pericarditis.Materials and Methodsit is a retrospective study including 15 patients hospitalized in our service over a period of seven years from 2006 to 2013, presenting a pericarditis.ResultsIt was of 15 patients including 5 men and 10 women, with a sex ratio of 0.5. The average age of our patients was 49 years (26 to 83 years). The pericarditis was revealed by: dysphonia (86% of cases), a chest pain (20% of cases), a flu-like syndrome with a moderate fever (13% of cases) and edema of the lower limbs (26% of cases). All patients had ultrasound a pericardial effusion well tolerated (moderate to abundant) except four patients who were in tamponade. She was of viral origin in 4 cases. It was in relation to a systemic disease in 6 cases: a systemic lupus erythematosus isolated in 3 cases, a rheumatoid arthritis in one case and a Sjögren syndrome in one case. In three cases the pericarditis was of renal origin. In addition, the pericarditis was secondary to radiotherapy for thymom in one case. In a single patient no etiology has been found. The evolution under specific medical treatments was good except of three patients who needed a surgical treatment with transition to chronicity in two cases.ConclusionThe pericarditis is often easy to diagnose. A complete etiological investigation allows an earlier and adapted therapeutic. A good collaboration between an internist and cardiologist would allow an effective prevention of the acute risk of tamponade and chronic evolution toward the constriction