CASE REPORT article
Front. Cardiovasc. Med.
Sec. Cardiovascular Imaging
Volume 12 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fcvm.2025.1624625
This article is part of the Research TopicCardiovascular Imaging Case Reports 2025: Emphasizing Uncommon Clinical ScenariosView all 4 articles
The Phantom Gap: A Case of Congenital Pericardial Absence Revealed by Advanced Imaging
Provisionally accepted
- 1Department of Cardiology, Department of Traditional Chinese Medicine, Chengdu Fifth People's Hospital, Chengdu, China
- 2Chengdu Fifth People's Hospital, chengdu, China
- 3Department of Traditional Chinese Medicine, Chengdu Fifth People's Hospital, Chengdu, China
- 4Chengdu Fifth People's, chengdu, China
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Abstr act Congenital absence of the pericardium (CAP) is a rare cardiac anomaly with an estimated prevalence of <1:10,000. CAP results from premature atrophy of the left common cardinal vein during embryogenesis, leading to pericardial defects. In this report, the case of a 39-year-old male with recurrent left-sided chest tightness who was initially misdiagnosed with pulmonary embolism (PE) is presented.Anticoagulation failed to resolve symptoms, prompting advanced imaging and multidisciplinary team review, which confirmed CAP. Conservative management was chosen because of mild symptoms and low herniation risk. This case underscores the diagnostic complexity of CAP and highlights the role of advanced imaging in differentiating CAP from PE. Clinicians should consider CAP in patients with nonspecific cardiac symptoms and imaging findings of cardiac displacement or abnormal mobility.
Keywords: congenital absence of the pericardium, Pulmonary Embolism, congenital heart disease, Pericardium, case report
Received: 08 May 2025; Accepted: 25 Jul 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Gou, Yao, chaohui, mingjian and xiaobo. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence:
Junqi Gou, Department of Cardiology, Department of Traditional Chinese Medicine, Chengdu Fifth People's Hospital, Chengdu, China
jiang xiaobo, Department of Traditional Chinese Medicine, Chengdu Fifth People's Hospital, Chengdu, China
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