Postpericardiotomy Syndrome Following Surgery for Nonrheumatic Heart Disease

Abstract

Widespread intracardiac surgery of rheumatic heart disease has brought to medical attention a puzzling postoperative complication, usually designated the "postcommissurotomy syndrome" and often considered to represent reactivation of rheumatic fever. Herein are reported instances of an identical complication following intrapericardial surgery of congenital heart disease. It is suggested that the delayed febrile pleuropericardial reaction represents a traumatic pericarditis and that a preferable name for it is the postpericardiotomy syndrome.