Fatal hemopericardial tamponade due to primary pericardial mesothelioma a case report.docVIP

Diagnostic Pathology BioMedCentral Case Report Open Access Fatal hemopericardial tamponade due to primary pericardial mesothelioma: a case report Daniel C Lingamfelter*1, Dominick Cavuoti2 and Amy C Gruszecki3 Address: 1Jackson County Medical Examiners Office, Kansas City, Missouri, USA, 2University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center, Dallas, Texas, USA and 3University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center, and Medical Examiner, Southwestern Institute of Forensic Sciences, Dallas, Texas, USA Email: Daniel C Lingamfelter* - DLingamfelter@; Dominick Cavuoti - Dominick.Cavuoti@UTS; Amy C Gruszecki - Amygrusz@ * Corresponding author Published: 9 December 2009 Received: 3 November 2009 Accepted: 9 December 2009 Diagnostic Pathology 2009, 4:44 doi:10.1186/1746-1596-4-44 This article is available from: /content/4/1/44 ? 2009 Lingamfelter et al; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. Abstract Background: Primary mesothelioma of the pericardium comprises less than 1% of all mesothelioma cases. Its typical presentation is insidious, with nonspecific signs and symptoms, and usually results in heart failure due to cardiac tamponade, either by a serous effusion or by direct tumorous constriction of the heart. With the exception of several case reports, the outcome is uniformly fatal, and patients typically die within six months of diagnosis. Case presentation: A 45-year-old African American female presented to the emergency department with several days of dizziness, difficulty walking, and low blood pressure. The patient suddenly suffered cardiac arrest, and her death was pronounced. The medical examiner assumed jurisdiction of the case due to the sudden death nature of the c