Post-traumatic compressive pneumopericardium with spontaneous ventilation: Case report.

Pneumopericardium is a rare complication of a blunt thoracic trauma. It is defined as the presence of air in the pericardial sac. There are just a few cases described in the literature. This article brings pneumopericardium to light, reinforcing the importance of considering it within the blunt chest trauma and remarking its management with a careful monitoring for the patients whose stable or even asymptomatic with spontaneous ventilation because of the risk of tension pneumopericardium and cardiac arrest. Diagnosis is often difficult, and it can be life-threatening by the occurrence of gas tamponade. We report the case of a 48 years old patient victim of a severe traumatism with pneumothorax and pneumopericardium; he was stable with spontaneous ventilation.