[Hemorrhagic cardiac tamponade without heart rupture during a myocardial infarct. A clinical case].

Cardiac tamponade during acute myocardial infarction is a life-threatening complication that can be confounded with right ventricular infarction. The most frequent cause of this complication is cardiac rupture. We report here a patient with acute myocardial infarction that developed cardiac tamponade on day 7, after receiving late systemic thrombolysis. The diagnosis was suspected with echocardiography and confirmed with hemodynamic measurements. The tamponade was partially relieved with pericardiocentesis but afterwards required emergency surgery. No cardiac rupture was found but an hemorrhagic infarction. We conclude that in this case the hemorrhagic tamponade was probably related both to late thrombolysis and to post infarction pericarditis.