[Symptomatic atrial fibrillation revealing chronic constrictive pericarditis in a young patient: A case report with a review of the literature].

Chronic Constrictive pericarditis (CCP) is a rare clinical entity that can pose diagnostic problems. Constrictive pericarditis is the final stage of a chronic inflammatory process characterized by fibrous thickening and calcification of the pericardium that impairs diastolic filling, reduces cardiac output, and ultimately leads to right heart failure and to atrial dilatation which can caused supravetricular arrythmia. Transthoracic echocardiography, computed tomography, and cardiac magnetic resonance imaging each can reveal severe diastolic dysfunction, increased pericardial thickness and calcifications. The gold standard for diagnosis is cardiac catheterization with analysis of intracavitary pressure curves, which are high and, in end diastole, equal in all chambers. CCP is the commun cause of recurrent heart failure. At present, idiopathic or viral pericarditis is the predominant cause of CP in the Western world, followed by postcardiotomy irritation and mediastinal irradiation. Tuberculosis is still a cause of pericarditis in developing countries and in immunosuppressed patient. We present a patient with symptomatic atrial fibrillation revealing chronic constrictive pericardis. He underwent to drug cardioversion before radical pericardiectomy and to date has made a good recovery without palpitations with a sinus rythm. The diagnosis of CP is often neglected by physicians, who usually attribute the symptoms to another disease process. This case show the difficulty in diagnosing, illustrated as well as the role of multimodality imaging and the excellent outcome of pericardiectomy for total recovery.