Fulminant Cardiac Tamponade: An Exceedingly Rare Presentation of Squamous Carcinoma of the Bronchus in a Male Patient

Abstract

A 49 year old man presented with near-fatal, fulminant, haemorrhagic cardiac tamponade. He responded well to emergency pericardiocentesis and subsequent investigation revealed the cause to be an unknown squamous carcinoma of the bronchus with pericardial involvement. He died 13 weeks later. Such a dramatic presentation of this type of tumour in a male patient has not been previously described.

Metastatic squamous-cell carcinoma in pericardial effusion: Report of four cases, two with cardiac tamponade

“…Metastatic squamous-cell carcinoma of the lung initially presenting with cardiac tamponade was only reported in three patients. 4,8,11 Two of our cases presented with pericardial tamponade, and upon clinical and radiographic evaluation there was a lung mass in both cases and lytic lesions in the bones in one case.…”

“…The most common cause of tamponade is cancer of bronchogenic origin, usually of glandular rather than squamous type. 9,16 To our knowledge, only three cases of squamous-cell carcinoma of the lung presenting with cardiac tamponade as the initial manifestation of disease have previously been reported in the literature 4,8,11 ; in all three the diagnosis was established by cytologic examination of pericardial fluid.…”