This is the first of two episodes looking at pneumothoraces. In this episode we’re going to start out by taking a look at traumatic pneumothoraces.
Traumatic pneumothoraces are present in about a fifth of multiple trauma patients, so it’s not infrequent to come across them and they can obviously occur in those with isolated chest injury too. Thoracic trauma occurs in around two thirds of multi-trauma cases and is classified as the primary cause of death in a quarter of trauma patients.
The clinical assessment carries with it a fair amount of dogma, including looking for tensions with tracheal deviation, so we’ll be running through what the signs we should look for actually mean.
Then we’ll move on to a detailed discussion about investigation strategies before finally looking at the guidelines and evidence on the topic, including which we have to intervene with, which we probably shouldn’t and those in which there is much uncertainty…
Once again we’d love to hear any comments or questions either via the website or social media.
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Enjoy!
Simon, Rob & James
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References
Pneumothorax. McKnight. StatPearls. 2023
Tension pneumothorax – time for a re-think? Leigh-Smith. EMJ. 2005
Spontaneous Pneumothorax: A 5-year Experience. Sousa. J Clin Med Res. 2011
Pneumothorax: from definition to diagnosis and treatment. Zarogoulidis. J Thorac Dis. 2014
Conservative Management in Traumatic Pneumothoraces: An Observational Study. Walker. Chest. 2018
Excellent podcast, thank you v much😊