This historical case series documents circulatory investigations in 9 patients with chronic constrictive pericarditis, emphasizing its recognition as a surgically treatable condition.
Early constrictive pericarditis series supports surgical candidacy; leaves open validation with modern imaging and hemodynamics.
Chronic constrictive pericarditis has received increasing attention in this country in the last ten years. White,1in 1935, brought together an excellent historic resume of Pick's syndrome,2analyzed the clinical manifestations and recorded the experience which he and Churchill had had with surgical treatment—pericardiectomy. This treatment has been pursued most extensively in this country by Churchill and White,3Beck,4Blalock and Burwell5and us. The syndrome does not appear to be as uncommon as was formerly thought to be the case. The recognition of chronic constrictive pericarditis is important, since it is a cardiac lesion which lends itself to surgical treatment. We have observed 9 patients in the last two and one-half years. Since one group of workers do not have the opportunity to see large numbers of these patients in a short time, we are recording our investigations of the circulation in the presence
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Harold J. Stewart (1939) studied this question.
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