Idiopathic chylothorax and chylopericardium resistant to conservative and surgical management

Abstract

Simultaneous idiopathic collection of chyle in the pericardial and pleural cavities is a rare phenomenon and to our knowledge it has been reported twice before [Torrington KG, Youkey JR. Simultaneous Idiopathic chylothorax and chylopericardium. South Med J 1981;74(March(3)):357-9; Kozielski J, Chylopericardium and chylothorax of unknown etiology. 1996]. There have been very few reported cases of chylopericardium presenting cardiac tamponade [Mehrotra S, Peeran NA, Bandyopadhyay A. Tex Heart Inst J 2006;33(2):249-53]. We report two cases of idiopathic pericardial and pleural effusions presenting cardiac tamponade resistant to conservative and surgical management.