Hydatid chronic cor pulmonale

Abstract

A case of hydatid chronic cor pulmonale is reported in which a primary cyst of the liver ruptured into a tributary of the suprahepatic vein and caused hydatid embolic obstruction of the branches of the pulmonary artery. Diagnosis was confirmed by catheterization of the heart, angiocardiography and autopsy. In only two of the ten published cases was the cyst located in the liver; in the remaining 8 cases the cor pulmonale resulted from the intracardiac rupture of a cyst of the right side of the heart. Hydatid chronic cor pulmonale is diagnosed by the coexistence of signs which reveal the presence of a metastatic pulmonary echinococcosis or of a liver or heart cyst rupturing into the systemic veins, into the right chambers of the heart or into the pulmonary artery. Without these associated signs, the diagnosis may prove difficult and the hydatid chronic cor pulmonale attributed to the wrong cause.