Abstract
Constrictive pericarditis is a rare pericardial disease in which a rigid, inelastic, non-distensible pericardium leads to severe diastolic dysfunction and symptoms of heart failure that is mainly right-sided. It has a significant repercussion on functional capacity and quality of life in patients who suffer from it. Although cardiac catheterization has traditionally been considered the gold standard hemodynamic evaluation for this disease, advances in cardiac imaging techniques—and in the use of multimodal imaging in particular—now allow for conducting a suitable, noninvasive diagnostic approach. A radical pericardiectomy is the treatment of choice for chronic forms of the disease. Anti-inflammatory agents can be tried in patients who are in the early stages of the disease and have signs of active pericardial inflammation on imaging tests. Prognosis following surgery varies. A series of factors of poor prognosis have been identified, which include advanced age, poor preoperative functional class, or radiology as the etiology.
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