Cardiac tamponade in a child with pneumonia - a case report

We present a case of a 5-year-old girl, with diagnosis of pleuropneumonia, complicated by pericarditis with cardiac tamponade. The diagnostic and therapeutic processes suggest mixed etiology. Anamnesis of the symptoms from the digestive system at the beginning (fever, abdominalgia, vomiting), lack of reaction for antibiotics, deterioration with progress of radiological changes in lungs, then pericarditis with aseptic blood culture and pericardium fluid show viral etiology. However high level of inflammatory parameters and improvement of patient's clinical status after modified antibiotic therapy show bacterial superinfection. That case proves that even so common and known disease such as pneumonia can cause serious diagnostic and therapeutic problems.