Why the study?
Most reported cases of viral pericarditis and pericardial effusion in COVID-19 occurred during active infection or shortly afterwards, with presentation months later being uncommon.
This case highlights that subacute idiopathic pericarditis with a large pericardial effusion can occur as a delayed post-viral complication several months after initial COVID-19 infection.
Clinicians should consider delayed pericarditis post-COVID-19; this case report is hypothesis-generating and requires confirmation.
The number of COVID-19 (SARS-Cov-2) cases has risen substantially throughout the world, and consequently we are finding there are several extrapulmonary manifestations associated with this disease. Viral pericarditis and pericardial effusion have been reported several times in COVID-19 patients, however the majority of these cases occurred during active infection or within a relatively short time frame afterwards. The following case is a young female with only a past medical history of COVID-19 pneumonia, seven months prior, presenting with abdominal pain and progressively worsening dyspnea. She was subsequently found to have a large pericardial effusion without tamponade, but requiring a pericardial window. Gross pathology showed fibrinous pericarditis. It is suspected her symptoms and pericardial effusion resulted from a subacute idiopathic pericarditis likely as post-viral complication of COVID-19.
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Hatharasinghe et al. (2021) studied this question.
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