How Is Pericarditis Treated?

Most cases of pericarditis are mild and clear up on their own or with rest and simple treatment. Other times, more intense treatment is needed to prevent complications. Treatment may include medicines and, less often, procedures and/or surgery.

The goals of treatment are to:

• Reduce pain and inflammation
• Treat the underlying cause, if it’s known
• Check for complications

Specific Types of Treatment

As a first step in your treatment, your doctor may advise you to rest until you feel better and have no fever.

He or she may tell you to take over-the-counter, anti-inflammatory medicines, such as aspirin or ibuprofen, to reduce pain and inflammation. You may need stronger medicine if your pain is severe.

If your pain continues to be severe, your doctor may prescribe a medicine called colchicine and, possibly, prednisone (a steroid medicine).

If an infection is causing your pericarditis, your doctor will prescribe an antibiotic or other appropriate medicine to treat the infection.

You may need to stay in the hospital during treatment so your doctor can check you for complications.

The symptoms of acute pericarditis can last from a few days to 3 weeks. Chronic cases may last several months.

Other Types of Treatment

If you have complications of pericarditis, you’ll need treatment for those problems. Two serious complications of pericarditis are cardiac tamponade and chronic constrictive pericarditis.

Cardiac tamponade is treated with a procedure called periocardiocentesis (PER-e-o-KAR-de-o-sen-TE-sis). A needle or tube (called a catheter) is inserted into the chest wall to remove excess fluid that has collected inside the pericardium. This relieves pressure on the heart.

If time allows, the fluid may be removed with a special catheter or tube put through a small cut in the chest.

The only cure for chronic constrictive pericarditis is surgery to remove the pericardium. This is known as a pericardiectomy (PER-i-kar-de-EK-to-me).

The treatments for these complications require hospital stays.