Cardiac Tamponade? Tell me more!

This week I began to look into the pathophysiology of Cardiac Tamponade, that is, what happens during a cardiac tamponade? I found a fantastic YouTube video that explains a cardiac tamponade very well.  It is a cheesy hand drawn video, but it keeps it simple and is entertaining to watch.

Excellent explanation of Cardiac Tamponade

Basically, the sac surrounding the heart tissue fills up with some sort of fluid.  This reduces the amount of space the heart has to pump.  As the sac fills with fluid, the heart becomes more constricted and cannot contract effectively.

Mosby's Medical Dictionary, 8th edition. © 2009, Elsevier

Since the pericardial sac is not flexible, it cannot expand very much with the increased fluid volume. This increases the pressure on the heart.  As the pressure builds, the stroke volume of the heart begins to decrease.  Eventually, obstructive shock develops, leading to cardiac arrest if left untreated.  

Mortality from cardiac tamponade is 100% if left untreated, or if the fluid isn't removed.  

Citation

Hasan Ali Gumrukcuoglu, Dolunay Odabasi, Serkan Akdag, and Hasan Ekim, “Management of Cardiac Tamponade: A Comperative Study between Echo-Guided Pericardiocentesis and Surgery—A Report of 100 Patients,” Cardiology Research and Practice, vol. 2011, Article ID 197838, 7 pages, 2011. doi:10.4061/2011/197838