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Reminder of important clinical lesson
CASE REPORT
Dressler’s syndrome: are we underdiagnosing what we think to be rare?
  1. Isabel Durães Campos,
  2. Alberto Salgado,
  3. Pedro Azevedo and
  4. Catarina Vieira
  1. Cardiology Department, Hospital de Braga, Braga, Portugal
  1. Correspondence to Dr Isabel Durães Campos, isabelcdcampos{at}gmail.com

Abstract

A 46-year-old man was admitted to the emergency department with fever and pleuritic thoracic pain. Six weeks prior to admission, the patient had undergone cardiac surgery. The ECG showed diffuse ST segment elevation and PR segment depression. The blood tests revealed increased inflammatory markers and negative myocardial necrosis markers. Pericardial and left-sided pleural effusion were noted. Sterile blood cultures were negative. Hence, the hypothesis of Dressler’s syndrome was established. The patient improved clinically and analytically with a short course of anti-inflammatory therapy and was discharged with colchicine and acetylsalicylic acid. A thoracic radiography performed 2 months after showed complete remission of pleural effusion.

  • pericardial disease
  • radiology (diagnostics)

https://doi.org/10.1136/bcr-2018-227772

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    Footnotes

    • Contributors IDC and PA were responsible for medical data acquisition. IDC wrote the manuscript. AS was the doctor responsible for the case orientation. PA, AS and CV revised the manuscript for important intellectual content. All authors gave the final approval of the version to be published.

    • Funding The authors have not declared a specific grant for this research from any funding agency in the public, commercial or not-for-profit sectors.

    • Competing interests None declared.

    • Provenance and peer review Not commissioned; externally peer reviewed.

    • Patient consent for publication Obtained.