Pericarditis differential diagnosis

Suggested Alternatives for Differential Diagnosis Hepatitis, Legionnaires disease, myocarditis, pericarditis, cardiac tamponade, pneumonia, ehrlichiosis, relapsing fever, Rocky Mountain spotted fever, and tularemia. 

Suggested Alternatives for Differential Diagnosis Pasteurellosis and other causes of pneumonia, East Coast fever, traumatic pericarditis, hydatid cyst, actinobacillosis and tuberculosis, and bovine farcy. 

On the other hand, at times, especially in the presence of multivessel coronary disease, negative, flattened or very low voltage positive T waves may be recorded in various leads due to delay in repolarization without subendocardial predominance that is usually consequence of post-ischaemic changes (reperfusion) (see p. 32, Figures 3.22 and 3.23). The differential diagnosis of this pattern from the ECG pattern found in some cases of pericarditis may be... 

In Table 4.3 the most frequent causes of ST-segment elevation, aside from IHD (typical and atypical ACS), are shown. At the time of making the differential diagnosis in clinical practice, out of all these different entities the possibility of a pericarditis or an early phase acute myopericarditis (Figures 4.48 and 4.49) should be kept in mind. These also cause chest pain that may complicate the diagnosis. 

Table 7.1 Differential diagnosis between pericarditis, early repolarization, ACS and dissecting aneurysm. 

Guizton LE, Lacks MM. The differential diagnosis of acute pericarditis from normal variant new ECG criteria. Circulation 1982 65 1004. 

The diagnosis of restrictive cardiomyopathy should be considered in any patient who presents with signs and symptoms of CHF but has only mild cardiomegaly. Differentiation from constrictive pericarditis is important because pericardectomy is an effective form of treatment for constrictive pericarditis. 

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