Cholesterol pericarditis terminating as constrictive calcific pericarditis. Follow-up study of patient with 40 year history of disease.

This is a follow-up report of a patient with idiopathic cholesterol pericarditis (previously described in this Journal in 1961). The patient had had recurrent pericardial effusions since 1939, and died with calcific constrictive pericarditis some 40 years later. In the interim, the patient had an extended period (17 years) of symptomatic relief after pericardiotomy in 1958.