CONGENITAL PARTIAL RIGHT PERICARDIAL DEFECT ASSOCIATED WITH HERNIATION OF THE RIGHT ATRIAL APPENDAGE.

CONGENITAL pericardial defect is relatively rare. Recently, however, the anomaly has been more frequently diagnosed during life, as awareness of the lesion increases and advances in radiological diagnosis are made. In 1961, one of the authors (1) reported a case of congenital partial defect of the pericardium on the left associated with herniation of the left atrial appendage, and since that time 3 more similar cases have been reported (2-4). To the authors' knowledge, however, there is no reported case of congenital partial pericardial defect on the right associated with herniation of the right atrial appendage. The purpose of this paper is to report such a case and to describe certain characteristic radiological features of the anomaly. Case Report K. J., a 61-year-old white male, was referred by a local physician to the West Virginia University Hospital because of chest pain and an abnormal cardiac shadow on the chest roentgenograms. He was in good health until two months previously when the chest pain...