En la mayoría de los enfermos el traumatismo hepático tiene un tratamiento médico. Esto se ve favorecido por el desarrollo de UCI y por el seguimiento estricto de las lesiones con estudios imagenológicos, fundamentalmente con TAC. El tratamiento quirúrgico se realiza en los pacientes con compromiso hemodinámico o cuando existen otras lesiones que ameritan una operación. Clásicamente, las lesiones hepáticas han sido tratadas con empaquetamiento del hígado con compresas. La malla de poliglactina cumple el mismo rol, pero tiene el beneficio de no necesitar ser retirada, lo que disminuiría la morbimortalidad. Presentamos 4 pacientes tratadas con malla de poliglactina luego de un traumatismo hepático, su evolución inmediata y alejada. Además se discuten aspectos de este tratamiento.PALABRAS CLAVE: Traumatismo hepático, tratamiento quirúrgico, empaquetamiento con malla. SUMMARYMost patients with subcapsular liver hematomas can be managed conservatively with a good hemodynamic and imaging monitoring. Surgery is reserved for patients with hemodynamic instability or when there are other lesions requiring surgical exploration. During surgery, liver lesions are usually wrapped with compresses. Polyglactine mesh has the same function, but does not require to be withdrawn, decreasing the risk for complications. We report four female patients with a ruptured subcapsular liver hematoma treated with polyglactine mesh wrapping. One patient was aged four days and had multiple malformations, one was aged 29 and had a HELLP syndrome, one was aged 34 years and had a lupus hepatitis and one aged 82 years and was in anticoagulant treatment. There was a mean of 2.3 surgical interventions in each patients and mean hospital stay was 17 days. One patient had to be admitted again due to a progression of the hematoma and was managed with selective arterial embolization. The newborn patient died of a respiratory infection, one month after discharge.

Introduction: Pneumatocele is an uncommon complication of pneumonia, most often asymptomatic with spontaneous resolution. Case-report: Female infant with an history of right upper lobe pneumonia, an air filled structure was noted in the chest X-ray. Asymptomatic until admitted for a wheezing episode, where an increase in the size of the structure was evidenced. She had clinical and radiological follow-up as recommended in a recent study, observing that 5 months later the cystic image was completely resolved. Discussion: According to criteria from published studies, this case is a non complicated pneumatocele because it was asymptomatic, compromised less than 50% of the hemithorax and no atelectasia, bronchopleural fistula or signs of infection were observed. Non complicated pneumatoceles can be followed up, and complicated can be treated by image guided catheter drainage or surgical resection. In this case, we confirmed spontaneous resolution after clinical and radiological follow-up.

(Rev Méd Chile 2005; 133: 1043-50).

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