Pericarditis is inflammation of the pericardium, the thin, two-layered sac that surrounds and protects the heart. It can be caused by viral infections, bacterial infections, autoimmune conditions, cancer, kidney failure, or heart surgery. The classic symptom is sharp chest pain that worsens with deep breathing or lying flat and improves with sitting up and leaning forward. On echocardiography, pericarditis may be associated with a pericardial effusion, pericardial thickening, or both. In constrictive pericarditis, a chronic form where the pericardium becomes stiff and calcified, echocardiography may show abnormal septal motion, dilated inferior vena cava, and respiratory variation in ventricular filling — findings that reflect the heart’s impaired ability to expand and fill normally.
Sonography Term