Current guidelines on the management of pericardial diseases suggest to identify high-risk features associated with an increased risk of non-idiopathic aetiology and complications. The aim of this study is to evaluate a "pericarditis score" to assess potential complicated pericarditis in order to facilitate initial clinical triage. Consecutive patients with pericarditis were included in a prospective cohort study from January 2017 to December 2018. Complicated pericarditis was defined as pericarditis with a non-idiopathic aetiology, and/or complications, and/or requiring hospitalization. A clinical and echocardiographic follow-up were performed at 1, 3, 6 months and then every 6 months. The study population was randomized in derivation and validation cohorts. In the derivation cohort, female gender (HR 2.57, p = 0.016), fever > 38 °C (HR 2.86, p = 0.005), previous lack of colchicine use (HR 3.16, p = 0.006), previous use of corticosteroids (HR 3.01, p = 0.009), and echocardiographic signs of constriction (HR 2.26, p = 0.018) were selected by a stepwise procedure in a Cox regression model and constituted the score showing a C-statistics of 0.81. In the validation group, the score was significantly associated with the risk of complicated pericarditis (HR 1.438 per 10-points increase, 95% CI 1.208-1.711, p < 0.001) and showed an increase in event rate with increasing score (low risk ≤ 20 points: complicated pericarditis in 4/19 patients, incidence 21%, p = 0.003, high risk > 40 points: complicated pericarditis in 18/24 patients, incidence 75%, p = 0.006). In this study, we developed and tested a simple score to efficiently identify at presentation patients at high risk of developing complicated pericarditis.
Keywords: Pericarditis; Prognosis; Score.
© 2021. Società Italiana di Medicina Interna (SIMI).