Table 1.

A brief chronology of events in discovery and gradual evolution of different modalities of management.

Year	Events
1837	T. Hart of the Park Street School of Medicine in Dublin described the first case of a pericardial diverticulum on autopsy16
1903	Rohn, from the Charles University of Prague first published a case series comprising of four diverticula and one cyst based on autopsy finding of these lesions. The interrelationship between pericardial diverticulum and cyst sharing a common embryonic origin was first recognised in this case series.23
1931	Wallace Yater (Georgetown University) detailed the radiological appearance and the differential diagnosis of pericardial cysts25
1931	Otto Pickhardt, at Lenox Hill Hospital in New York performed first surgical removal of pericardial cyst15
1937	First pneumogram of pericardial cyst was performed by E. H. Cushing26
1940	Adrian Lambert first suggested similar embryological origin of pericardial cyst and diverticula from disconnected mesenchymal lacunae, which later unite to form the pericardial coelom27
1943	First resection of a pericardial diverticulum by Richard Sweet at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston29
1943	Greenfield et al introduced the term ‘Springwater cyst’17
1958	Le Roux reported the incidence of three cases of pericardial cysts in 300,000 people in a mass X-ray campaign in Edinburgh14