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Pericardial Access and Drainage: Standard Techniques

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Book cover Interventional Pericardiology

Abstract

During more than 200 years of practice of pericardial drainage in the history of medicine physicians had to select either an open surgical approach or blind pericardiocentesis, mainly according to the personal preferences and training. In the absence of valid imaging the open approach was safer regarding the risk of puncturing the cardiac chambers instead of the effusion, the second approach had the lower risk for secondary infection.

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Maisch, B., Ristić, A.D., Seferović, P.M., Tsang, T.S.M. (2011). Pericardial Access and Drainage: Standard Techniques. In: Interventional Pericardiology. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-11335-2_4

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