Futility of pericardiectomy for postirradiation constrictive pericarditis?

Two patients underwent pericardiectomy for postirradiation constrictive pericarditis. Both had received radiotherapy (more than 6,000 rads) for treatment of Hodgkin's disease 17 (patient 2) and 20 years (patient 1) earlier. At the time of operation, the patients were in New York Heart Association functional class III-IV or IV. Preoperative catheterization showed the following pressures for patients 1 and 2, respectively: right atrial, 30 and 14 mm Hg; right ventricular end-diastolic, 28 and 14 mm Hg; wedge, 29 and 13 mm Hg; and left ventricular end-diastolic, 27 and 14 mm Hg. Complete epicardiectomy and pericardiectomy was attempted in both patients. However, hospital mortality was 100%; patient 1 died of multiorgan failure after six days, and patient 2 died of biventricular failure after 3 months. A review of the literature revealed 44 cases of pericardiectomy for postirradiation constrictive pericarditis and a late survival rate of less than 50%. The poor results in these patients compared with patients having pericardiectomy for other reasons seem to be due mainly to the various kinds of radiation-induced damage to the heart as a whole, including untimely coronary artery disease, myocardial fibrosis, atrioventricular conduction disturbances, and valve dysfunction, with the result that complete relief by epicardiectomy and pericardiectomy may not be technically feasible.