Acute Pericarditis: Its Role in Diagnostic Interpretation

¹ Executive Director, Commission on Foreign Medical Graduates: Professor of Medicine Emeritus, Jefferson Medical College, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

When the pericarditis does not represent the predominating clinical picture and occurs as a part of a general process with predominating symptoms elsewhere, the diagnosis is frequently missed unless repeated pointed examination is carried out for signs of pericarditis. Often suspicion must be drawn to pericarditis because of findings other than the usual reliable signs and the latter then sought out or the patient followed with sequential examinations. Great variability in etiologic factors and subsequent symptomatology make diagnostic thought often a problem primarily of etiologic rather than anatomic consideration. Differential diagnosis springing from pathognomonic signs frequently is not the clinical problem.