Constrictive pericarditis should be considered in the differential diagnosis of patients presenting with unexplained ascites and edema to avoid misdiagnosis as primary liver disease.
Supports considering constrictive pericarditis in unexplained ascites; leaves open prospective validation of diagnostic strategies.
Constrictive pericarditis (CP) is defined as impedance to diastolic filling caused by a fibrotic pericardium. The diagnosis of CP is a clinical challenge and requires a high index of clinical suspicion. The signs and symptoms of CP include fatigue, edema, ascites, and liver dysfunction. These can be mistakenly diagnosed as primary liver disease. We present the case of a 69-year-old woman with a 7-year history of leg edema and a 2-year history of ascites who was initially diagnosed with cryptogenic liver cirrhosis and was finally diagnosed with CP.
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Kamio et al. (2018) studied this question.
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