Monthly Archives: April 2017

What the heck?

What The Heck? Progressive Back Pain After Heavy Lifting

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What the heck?! Here’s an interesting case of back pain! Can you figure it out?

A 20 year old male athlete has been performing 125 pound deadlift exercises recently. During his last session, he rapidly escalated to 6 reps at 235 pounds. He developed crampy lower back pain two hours later. The pain became rapidly worse, and he was evaluated at a hospital two days later.

He complained of unrelenting back pain, and could not get up or turn from a supine position. He denies taking any medications or supplements. There is no history of trauma.

On exam, he had firm and painful paraspinal muscles. Buttocks, thighs, and legs were nontender. All pulses were present. Straight leg raise and reverse straight leg raise tests were normal bilaterally. The abdomen was soft and nontender.

What are you thinking? What additional workup is needed at this point?

Post your comments below, or tweet them out. Tomorrow, we’ll walk through the diagnostic stuff, and Monday will be the big reveal.

Head

Do We Really Need To Consult Neurosurgery For Mild TBI?

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We consult our neurosurgeons too often. Think back on all the head injured patients you have admitted and placed a neurosurgical consult. How many times did they recommend something new or different, or take them to surgery? Not very often, I would guess.

This is becoming a hot topic. Check out the references below to read about a few other studies that have taken a similar approach.

The trauma group at Scripps Mercy in San Diego retrospectively reviewed their admissions to determine how often patients with mild TBI (GCS > 13) and some degree  intracranial hemorrhage required neurosurgical intervention, even if they were intoxicated or taking anti-platelet or anticoagulant drugs. A total of 500 patients were studied over a 28 month period.

Here are the factoids:

  • 49 (10%) of patients required some sort of neurosurgical intervention (41 craniotomy/craniectomy, 8 ICP monitors)
  • 93% of patients had neurosurgical consultation, and made additional recommendations in only 10 (2%),none of which changed management
  • There was no clinical difference in GCS between those who received an intervention and those who did not
  • Epidural and subdural hematomas were significant predictors of neurosurgical intervention
  • Intoxication or use of anti-platelet or anticoagulant drugs was not associated with intervention. These were present in 30% of all patients!
  • Unsurprisingly, ICU and hospital length of stay were longer in patient who underwent an intervention

Bottom line: As I said, this seems to be a hot research topic. And in this study, the numbers are getting larger and the criteria more inclusive (alcohol and anticoagulants allowed).

Neurosurgeons play a very important role in patients with more moderate to injury to their brain, and with spine injuries. But their input may not be needed in many patients with milder injuries. These data suggest that, in patients with GCS > 13, only subdural and epidural hematomas require consultation because they are much more likely to require intervention. 

This parallels a practice guideline we have in place where patients with subarachnoid or small intraparenchymal hemorrhage, or a linear skull fracture are managed by the trauma service without neurosurgical consultation. We do involve them if there is any intracranial hemorrhage with a history of anticoagulant use, however.

We all need to use our neurosurgeons wisely, and this paper helps to clarify situations where they may and may not be needed. 

Related posts:

Reference: Routine neurosurgical consultation is not necessary in mild blunt traumatic brain injury. J Trauma 82(4):776-780, 2017

Thorax

Flying Or Diving After Traumatic Pneumothorax

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Patients who have sustained a traumatic pneumothorax occasionally ask how soon they can fly in an airplane or scuba dive after they are discharged. What’s the right answer?

The basic problem has to do with Boyle’s Law (remember that from high school?). The volume of a gas varies inversely with the barometric pressure. So the lower the pressure, the larger a volume of gas becomes. Most of us hang out pretty close to sea level, so this is not an issue. But for flyers or divers, it may be.

Flying

Helicopters typically fly only one to two thousand feet above the ground, so the air pressure is about the same as standing on the earth. However, flying in a commercial airliner is different. Even though the aircraft may cruise at 30,000+ feet, the inside of the cabin remains considerably lower though not at sea level. Typically, the cabin altitude goes up to about 8,000 to 9,000 feet. Using Boyle’s law, any volume of gas (say, a pneumothorax in your chest), will increase by about a third on a commercial flight.

The physiologic effect of this increase depends upon the patient. If they are young and fit, they may never know anything is happening. But if they are elderly and/or have a limited pulmonary reserve, it may compromise enough lung function to make them symptomatic. And having a medical problem in an aluminum tube at 30,000 feet is never good.

Commercial guidelines for travel after pneumothorax range from 2-6 weeks. The Aerospace Medical Association published guidelines that state that 2-3 weeks is acceptable. The Orlando Regional Medical Center reviewed the literature and devised a practice guideline that has a single Level 2 recommendation that commercial air travel is safe 2 weeks after resolution of the pneumothorax, and that a chest x-ray should be obtained immediately prior to travel to confirm resolution.

Diving

Diving would seem to be pretty safe, right? Any pneumothorax would just shrink while the diver was at depth, then re-expand to the original size when he or she surfaces, right?

Not so fast. You are forgetting why the pneumothorax was there in the first place. The lung was injured, most likely via tearing it, penetration by something sharp, or popping a bleb. If the injured area has not completely healed, then air may begin to escape through it again. And since the air used in scuba diving is delivered under pressure, this could result in a tension pneumothorax.  This is disastrous underwater!

Most injuries leading to pneumothorax heal completely. However, if there are bone spicules stuck in the lung or more complicated parenchymal injuries from penetrating injury, they may never completely heal. This makes the diver susceptible to a tension pneumothorax anytime they use their regulator.

Bottom line: Most patients can safely travel on commercial aircraft 2 weeks after resolution of pneumothorax. Ideally, a chest xray should be obtained shortly before travel to confirm that it is gone. Helicopter travel is okay at any time, since they typically fly at 1,500 feet or less.

Divers should see a physician trained in dive medicine to evaluate their injury and imaging prior to making another dive.

References:

  • Divers Alert Network – Pneumothorax – click to download
  • Practice Guideline, Orlando Regional Medical Center. Air travel following traumatic pneumothorax. October 2009.
  • Medical Guidelines for Airline Travel, 2nd edition. Aerospace Medical Association. Aviation, Space, and Environmental Medicine 74(5) Section II Supplement, May 2003.