A special thanks to Drs Jess McLaren, Walter Himmel and Paul Dorian for their expertise on the EM Cases podcast from which this article was inspired.

Dr. Helman (@EMCases) is an emergency physician at North York General Hospital in Toronto. He is an assistant professor at the University of Toronto, Division of Emergency Medicine and the education innovation lead at the Schwartz/Reisman Emergency Medicine Institute. He is the founder and host of Emergency Medicine Cases podcast.

References

1. Troughton RW, Asher CR, Klein AL. Pericarditis. Lancet. 2004;363 (9410):717–27.
2. Chiabrando JG, Bonaventura A, Vecchié A, et al. Management of acute and recurrent pericarditis. J Am Coll Cardiol. 2020;75(1):76-92.
3. Adler Y, Charron P, Imazio M, et al. 2015 ESC Guidelines for the diagnosis and management of pericardial diseases. European Heart Journal. 2015;36(42):2921-2964.
4. Chiabrando JG, Bonaventura A, Vecchié A, et al. Management of acute and recurrent pericarditis: JACC state-of-the-art review. J Am Coll Cardiol. 2020;75(1):76-92.
5. McLaren J. ECG cases 27 pericarditis – diagnosis of exclusion. Emergency Medicine Cases website. Published online November 2021. Accessed June 12, 2022. https://emergencymedicinecases.com/ecg-cases-pericarditis-diagnosis-exclusion/
6. Witting MD, Hu KM, Westreich AA, et al. Evaluation of Spodick’s sign and other electrocardiographic findings as indicators of STEMI and pericarditis. J Emerg Med. 2020;58(4):562-569.
7. Bischof JE, Worrall C, Thompson P, et al. ST depression in lead aVL differentiates inferior ST-elevation myocardial infarction from pericarditis. Am J Emerg Med. 2016;34:149-154.
8. Bhardwaj R, Berzingi C, Miller C, et al. Differential diagnosis of acute pericarditis from normal variant early repolarization and left ventricular hypertrophy with early repolarization: an electrocardiographic study. Am J Med Sci. 2013;345(1): 28-32.
9. Imazio M, Demichelis B, Cecchi E, et al. Cardiac troponin i in acute pericarditis. J Am Coll Cardiol. 2003;42(12):2144-2148.
10. Ismail TF. Acute pericarditis: Update on diagnosis and management. Clin Med (Lond). 2020;20(1):48-51.
11. Imazio M, Cecchi E, Demichelis B, et al. Indicators of poor prognosis of acute pericarditis. Circulation. 2007;115(21):2739-2744.
12. Imazio M, Bobbio M, Cecchi E, et al. Colchicine in addition to conventional therapy for acute pericarditis. Circulation. 2005;112(13):2012-2016.
13. Lotrionte M, Biondi-Zoccai G, Imazio M, et al. International collaborative systematic review of controlled clinical trials on pharmacologic treatments for acute pericarditis and its recurrences. Am Heart J. 2010;160(4):662-670.
14. Imazio M, Brucato A, Cemin R, et al. A randomized trial of colchicine for acute pericarditis. N Engl J Med. 2013;369(16):1522-1528.
15. Alabed S, Cabello JB, Irving GJ, et al. Colchicine for pericarditis. Cochrane Database Syst Rev. 2014 Aug 28;(8) ):CD010652.