Pericardial effusion

Morning report today was on pericardial effusions.

Here is a prior post on the causes of pericarditis
http://morningreporttgh.blogspot.com/2009/04/shot-through-heart-and-your-to-blameyou.html.
When thinking of pericardial effusions, the causes are all the same, as well as the addition of hypothyroidism.

We talked only briefly about cardiac tamponade, but here is a link to the JAMA rational clinical exam paper 'Does this patient have cardiac tamponade'
http://jama.ama-assn.org/content/297/16/1810.abstract