This video shows what it looks like from the inside when a needle thoracostomy is inserted into the chest. Note that it takes about a minute for the lung to expand, so be patient when you insert the needle. You can also get an idea of why the needle is only a temporary measure as the inflating lung begins to kink the catheter.
Don’t ask why there was a thoracoscope in the chest with a tension pneumo in the first place, though!
Here’s a quick video detailing the proper steps to relieve a tension pneumothorax using needle thoracostomy. In my next post, I’ll provide a video link so you can see what it looks like from inside the chest!
It’s well known that our elders do less well than younger folks after injury. The number of complications is higher, there tends to be more loss of independence during recovery, and mortality is increased. This is not only true of high energy trauma like car crashes, but also much lower energy events such as a fall from standing.
Rib fractures are common after falls in the elderly and contribute to significant morbidity if not treated adequately. Traditionally, they are identified through a combination of physical exam and chest x-ray. Unfortunately, only half of rib fractures are visible on x-ray. It falls to the physical exam to detect the rest.
A group at Beth Israel Hospital in Boston explored the utility of using chest CT in an attempt to determine if this would result in more appropriate and cost-efficient care in the elderly. They performed a retrospective study of 3 years of their own data on patients aged 65 or more presenting after a mechanical fall and receiving a rib fracture diagnosis. Imaging was ordered at the discretion of the physician. A total of 330 patients were elderly, fell, and had both chest x-ray and chest CT obtained. This was a very elderly group, with a mean age of 84 years!
Here are the factoids:
Conclusion: use of CT for rib fracture diagnosis resulted in a few more admissions, but no change in hospital resource utilization, complications, or mortality.
Bottom line: Hmm…, read the paper closely. The authors conclude that more patients with CT-only identified rib fractures are admitted. But compared to what? Unfortunately, patients without rib fractures on CT. What about comparing to patients who had fractures seen on chest x-ray too? If that number is the same, then of what additional use is CT? Identifying a few incidentalomas?
Given that there is no change in the usual outcome measures listed here, it doesn’t seem like there is any additional benefit to adding CT. And I can see a lot of downsides: cost, radiation, and possible exposure to IV contrast. In my mind, there is still nothing that beats a good physical exam and a chest x-ray. Skip the CT scan. And don’t even think about ordering rib detail images! That’s so 1990s. And even if no rib fractures are seen on imaging, physical exam is the prime determinant for admitting your patient for aggressive pain management and pulmonary toilet.
Reference: Chest CT imaging utility for radiographically occult rib fractures in elderly fall-injured patients. J Trauma ePub ahead of print, Jan 23, 2019.
For as long as I can remember (nearly 50 years worth of literature) there has been some debate about giving antibiotics after chest tube insertion to decrease the infection rate. The pendulum moved back and forth for decades, never getting very far into the “give antibiotics” side. It’s been quite a while since I remember any new papers on this, and I thought the debate had been resolved in favor of never using them.
But then I see an abstract from the AAST multi-institutional trials group studying presumptive antibiotics after chest tube insertion! They conducted a prospective, observational study at 22 Level I trauma centers, enrolling nearly 2,000 patients. They matched patients in antibiotic and no antibiotic groups, arriving at (only) 272 patients in each group.
Here are the results:
Bottom line: First, it’s a little disappointing that the numbers were so low with a trial that includes 22 trauma centers. Did they have a hard time finding centers that would give antibiotics? Or was it just hard to match patients for the variables they were looking at? Regardless, there were no significant differences in infectious complications, and a non-clinically significant difference in ICU stay with antibiotics.
Why won’t this die? If there are so few papers that show an actual benefit from giving antibiotics after chest tube insertion with 50 years of data, then it’s very unlikely that it will ever be shown to be necessary!
Reference: Presumptive antibiotics for tube thoracostomy for traumatic pneumothorax. Session XXII Paper 49, AAST 2018.
Deciding when to place a chest tube can be challenging. Sometimes, it’s obvious: there is a large hemo- or pneumothorax staring you in the face on the chest x-ray. But sometimes, it’s there but “not that big.” The real question is, how big is too big.
That’s a question that’s been very difficult to quantify. The authors of this abstract, from the Medical College of Wisconsin, conducted a six-year retrospective review of every patient with an isolated pneumothorax at their Level I trauma center. Based on their previous research, a 35mm threshold was used to stratify patients into two groups. This measurement was obtained from axial images of a CT scan. Statistical analysis was performed to identify the predictive value in determining whether the patient could be managed without a chest tube.
Here are the factoids:
Bottom line: Not so fast! Although this looks like a slam dunk abstract, it’s really not. First, many (or most?) pneumothoraces are initially diagnosed using a plain old chest x-ray. A 35mm measurement is meaningless here because there can be significant changes in position of the pneumothorax on the image. Sometimes, the air is located anteriorly with little or no lateral component. Does this mean we should CT every patient with a known or suspected pneumothorax? I think not.
And the second issue is the subjectivity surrounding the definition of a failure. What criteria were used when the tube was actually placed in this series. If every patient had to become symptomatic first, then I might agree. But I suspect the tubes were placed when followup imaging showed that the air was just “too big.” You can’t statistic away this kind of potential bias from subjectivity.
So what’s the answer? Unfortunately, there still isn’t one. The need for a chest tube must still be based on subjective size on a chest x-ray, physiologic status, and the patient’s ability to tolerate a given amount of lost lung function. It continues to boil down to the assessments of each trauma professional as to “how big is too big.”
Reference: Observing pneumothoraces: the 35mm rule is safe for both blunt and penetrating chest trauma. Session XVA Paper 28, AAST 2018.