Pericardial Effusion and When to Worry about Tamponade

Jailyn Avila and Ben Smith discuss a recent Core Ultrasound YouTube lecture on diagnosing pericardial effusions and cardiac tamponade with point-of-care ultrasound, emphasizing its importance in emergency medicine and cardiac arrest. The Reason trial (PMID: 27693280; Romolo Gasparin et al) demonstrates improved survival to ROSC when pericardial effusion is identified with ultrasound—a finding that…