Acute Hypotension and Chest Pain as the Presentation of a Post-Myocardial Infarction Acute Pericarditis (Dressler’s Syndrome)

We report a case of a 53-year old man admitted because of fever (38.5°C) and atypical chest pain. He also complained of epigastric pain spread to left hypochondrium and exacerbated by breathing. In his past medical history, Hodgkin’s lymphoma, gastric MALToma (oncologic follow-up only), hypothyroidism, and hypertension are recorded. Fifteen days prior actual hospital admission, the patient underwent angioplasty with stenting due to a ST elevation myocardial infarction. Moreover, he was enrolled in the experimental clinical double-blind trial GEMINI-ACS [1], designed to compare the safety of rivaroxaban vs aspirin in addition to either clopidogrel or ticagrelor. Thus, his complete therapy included also ticagrelor, bisoprolol, perindopril, levothyroxine, pantoprazole, and atorvastatin. At the time of admission chest X-ray showed bilateral pleural effusion. Blood chemistry panel showed moderate anemia, increase of inflammatory indexes, in particular fibrinogen 1057 mg/dl (normal range 150-400 mg/dl), C-reactive-protein 17.6 mg/dl (normal range <0.5 mg/dl), serum ferritin 650 ng/ ml (normal range 11-306 ng/ml), while serum pro-calcitonin was normal. Electrocardiography and cardiac troponin I were not suggestive of further heart ischemic damage. Two days later, the patient showed hypotension, exacerbation of chest pain, as well as a rapid drop hemoglobin values. A thoracicabdominal CT (figure 1) was performed, showing peri-hepatic and pericardial effusions associated with hyper-reflectivity of pericardial leaflets. After a precautionary discontinuation of the experimental drugs, acetylsalicylic acid and clopidogrel were only given, together with antibiotics, diuretics and steroids. Clinical conditions slowly improved, blood pressure levels raised, together with hemoglobin values, and inflammatory parameters decreased. The patient was discharged in good clinical conditions, with the conclusive discharge diagnosis of Dressler syndrome (DS) related to angioplasty and stenting procedure for acute myocardial infarction.