Dying from cardiac tamponade

BACKGROUND: To determine the causes of cardiac tamponade (CT), focussing especially on haemopericardium (HP), as a terminal mode of death, within a 430,000 rural English population. METHODS: Our hospital mortuary register and, all postmortem reports between 1995 and 2004 inclusive, were interrogated for patients dying of CT or HP. The causes of CT/HP and selected morphological characteristics were then determined. RESULTS: 14,368 postmortems were performed in this period: of these, 461 patients died of CT. Three cases were due to non-haemorrhagic pericardial effusion. HP accounted for the remaining 458 cases of which, five were post-traumatic, 311 followed rupture of an acute myocardial infarction (RAMI), 138 after intra-pericardial rupture of dissecting ascending aortic aneurysms (RD3A) and four were due to miscellaneous causes. HP was more commonly due to RAMI. Men tended to die from RAMI or RD3A earlier than women. RAMI or RD3A were commoner in men <70 yrs, but more frequent in women after this. Two thirds of RAMI were associated with coronary artery thrombosis. Anterior free wall rupture was commonest overall, and in women, but posterior free wall rupture was commoner in men. The volume of intrapericardial blood in RAMI (mean = 440 ml) and RD3A (mean = 498 ml) varied between 150 and 1000 ml: intrapericardial blood volume was greater in men than in women dying from either RAMI or RD3A. CONCLUSION: At postmortem, CT is most often related to HP, attributable to either RAMI or intrapericardial RD3A. Post-traumatic and other causes of CT are infrequent.