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Case Reports
. 2021 Feb 8;32(1):88-90.
doi: 10.31138/mjr.32.1.88. eCollection 2021 Mar.

All That Glitters is not Gold! A Case of Concomitant Acute Pericarditis and Subsegmental Pulmonary Embolism

Dimitrios Patoulias  1 , Savvas Papachristou  1 , Dimitrios Vitos  1 , Xanthi Apostolidou  2 , Vivian Georgopoulou  3 , Andreanna Kozanidou  1 , Dafni Stamou  1 , Nikolaos Samarentsis  1 , Andriana Chioni  1 , Spyridon Bakatselos  1
Affiliations
Case Reports

All That Glitters is not Gold! A Case of Concomitant Acute Pericarditis and Subsegmental Pulmonary Embolism

Dimitrios Patoulias et al. Mediterr J Rheumatol. .

Abstract

Concomitance of acute pericarditis and pulmonary embolism is extremely rare, with only a few case reports published so far. Herein we present a case of a 50-year-old man that presented to the Emergency Department, complaining of fever up to 38.5°C, pleuritic chest pain, nausea, arthralgias, and general symptoms during the previous two weeks. Thorough diagnostic work-up revealed the diagnosis of concomitant acute pericarditis and pulmonary embolism, which raised high index of clinical suspicion for systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE). Indeed, the patient did not marginally meet the diagnostic criteria for SLE (total score=8), according to the updated 2019 European League Against Rheumatism/American College of Rheumatology Classification Criteria. Since then, the patient remains asymptomatic, while he is under close monitoring for potential manifestation of other SLE clinical features. Our case highlights the need for long-term follow-up in such patients, especially when the first episode is attributed as idiopathic.

Keywords: Acute pericarditis; pericardial effusion; pulmonary embolism; systemic lupus erythematosus.

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Figures

Figure 1.
Figure 1.
Chest CT scan: (A) notice the pericardial effusion, the left pleural effusion and (B) the bilateral, subsegmental pulmonary embolism (arrows).
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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