Impaired right ventricular systolic function (RVSF) may complicate the treatment of constrictive pericarditis (CP) by pericardiectomy, which is a procedure that remains with significant morbidity and mortality. We evaluated RVSF in patients with CP who underwent pericardiectomy to determine the prognostic value of RVSF. RVSF was assessed by measuring Tricuspid Annular Plane Systolic Excursion (TAPSE) in 35 patients (mean age 52 ± 15.4 years) who underwent pericardiectomy. Thirty-one patients (88.6%) had reduced RVSF (TAPSE ≤1.8 cm). Eight patients (23%) had postoperative events (heart failure 3 and hospital mortality 5). Logistic regression showed that concomitant coronary artery bypass grafting (CABG) (p = 0.052), left ventricular ejection fraction (p = 0.059), left atrial diameter (p = 0.028), and TAPSE (p = 0.016) were borderline or significant univariate predictors of events. TAPSE (p = 0.018, odds ratio = 0.605 [0.40 to 0.92]) and CABG (p = 0.033, odds ratio = 20 [1.26 to 315]) were independent predictors of events on multivariate analysis. Stepwise analysis showed that TAPSE provided incremental prognostic value (p = 0.029, chi-square increase 11.6 to 16.3) to the combination of CABG, ejection fraction, and left atrial diameter. Receiver-operating characteristic curve analysis showed an area under the curve of 0.815 for TAPSE. TAPSE of 1.38 cm had a sensitivity of 88% and specificity of 67% for identifying patients with events. TAPSE was also inversely related to the length of hospital stay after pericardiectomy (p = 0.02, R = -0.424). Hence, our study showed that RVSF is frequently reduced in patients with CP who underwent pericardiectomy. In conclusion, TAPSE is an independent predictor of events and provides incremental prognostic value to other clinical and echocardiographic variables.
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