Pericarditis:

• Pericarditis simply refers to inflammation of pericardium- outer layer of heart.
• It may be acute or chronic in nature.
• Pericarditis may be traumatic, fibrinous, effusive or adhesive depending on nature of inflammation.
• Traumatic pericarditis is widely prevalent in cattle due to higher incidence of ingestion of foreign objects in grass or straw.

Types of pericarditis:

1. Traumatic pericarditis:

• It occurs most commonly in cattle
• It is caused by trauma to pericardium due to perforation of pericardial sac due to ingestion of foreign material
• This type of pericarditis is also recorded in horse and lamb, but are uncommon.

2. Effusive pericarditis:

• It is common form of acquired cardiovascular disease in dogs, uncommon in cattle and rare in cats.
• It is characterized by accumulation of protein rich fluid within pericardial sac.

3. Fibrinous pericarditis:

• In this type of pericarditis, fluid is replaced by fibrin. In chronic inflammatory process, fibrin starts to deposit around pericardium resulting in fibrinous pericarditis.
• It is also known as adhesive pericarditis.
• Parietal and visceral surface of pericardial sac gets adhesive.