[A case of pericarditis in acute brucellosis]

A case of brucellosis pericarditis in a patient affected with acute brucellosis hospitalized in the Infectious Disease Department of Asti Hospital is described. During the hospitalization, the patient revealed (in addition to the classical symptoms and signs), a modest shooting pain in the chest and typical electrocardiographic alterations confirmed by an echocardiography that revealed slight pericardial effusion at both front and rear, subsequently and by steroid and specific antibiotic therapies. The real possibility of finding this complication, considered so rare in the literature, in cardiovascular brucellosis is pointed out as is the capacity of modern echocardiographic research to confirm and reinforce diagnosis and consequently also the description of modest pericardial effusions with unclear symptoms and electrocardiographic signs that were once practically ignored when the pericardial involvement often escaped a clinical identification, being concealed by the most important signs of the primary infection.