Jana Podzimková, Petr Kuchynka, Tomáš Paleček, Vladimír Černý, Eduard Němeček, Aleš Linhart
Constrictive pericarditis is a relatively rare disease caused by scarred and often calcified pericardium that leads to impaired ventricular diastolic filling and consequently to heart failure. This condition may be caused by any kind of pericardial damage. Getting a correct diagnosis of this heart disease is a challenge for many clinicians due to its close haemodynamic resemblance to restrictive cardiomyopathy and due to slow onset of symptoms. Pericardial constriction may be present for only restricted period of time, typically following cardiac surgery, and is then called transient constrictive pericarditis. In other cases constrictive process persists and leads to severe congestive heart failure if left untreated. Pericardiectomy (performed in specialized cardiocentres) is the only potentially curable treatment of symptomatic constriction. Treatment of transient constrictive pericarditis is based on administration of anti-inflammatory medication, mainly non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs.