Pericardial disease in renal patients.

Pericardial disease is common in patients with renal disease. Approximately 20% of uremic patients requiring chronic dialysis develop uremic pericarditis or dialysis pericarditis. In all forms of uremic pericarditis, cardiac tamponade is the main danger. Pericardial contents are sterile unless secondarily infected. Differential diagnosis may be difficult, especially in mentally confused patients and because nonuremic intercurrent pericarditis of any cause is always possible. In uremic patients, frequent autonomic impairment and decreased cardiac adenylate cyclase limit heart rate increases during pericarditis, even during tamponade, so that the heart rate may be deceptively slow even with fever and hypotension. Adequate renal dialysis effectively ends uremic pericarditis. Several factors are associated with precipitating dialysis pericarditis and effusion, above all inadequate dialysis. Pericarditis in hepatorenal failure occurs at relatively low blood urea nitrogen levels and does not respond to dialysis.