Clinical pathologic conference. Purulent pericarditis with asymmetric cardiac tamponade: a cause of death months after coronary artery bypass surgery.

This relatively young man with a host of medical problems including polycystic kidneys. chronic renal failure, long-standing hypertension, and premature atherosclerosis, died of cardiovascular disease; not, as might be expected, from his severe coronary artery disease but rather from purulent pericarditis. The latter was an unusual and unexpected consequence of the entire complex of his illnesses and because of its confinement to the posterior pericardium by postoperative adhesions produced an asymmetric cardiac tamponade.