Constrictive pericarditis: an unusual clinical entity suggested during dobutamine stress echocardiography.

A 44-year-old female presents with disabling dyspnea and is unable to perform a regular treadmill stress test; instead a dobutamine stress echocardiogram is performed and although negative for ischemia reveals a vigorous paradoxical motion of the interventricular septum with dilatation of the inferior vena cava without respiratory variation and an increased diastolic flow signal in the hepatic veins after expiration with the infusion of dobutamine. The diagnosis of constrictive physiology is confirmed with cardiac magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and right heart hemodynamics and the patient underwent pericardiectomy without complications with resolution of symptoms.