Blunt chest trauma with deep pulmonary laceration

Blunt Chest Trauma in Childhood

“…However, it has been considered that standard plain chest roentgenograms are inadequate in one‐third of the lesions regarding pleura and lung parenchyma 12 . When diagnosing patient with thoracic trauma, CT is not a basic diagnosis method, but it is a very crucial visualization alternative 3 . CT provides more information than radiological films in diagnosing pleura, pulmonary parenchyma and mediastinal pathologies and in determining the position of the thorax tube and identifying many disregarded lesions.…”

“…12 When diagnosing patient with thoracic trauma, CT is not a basic diagnosis method, but it is a very crucial visualization alternative. 3 CT provides more information than radiological films in diagnosing pleura, pulmonary parenchyma and mediastinal pathologies and in determining the position of the thorax tube and identifying many disregarded lesions. However, its specificity is limited to oesophagus, trachea and main bronchus injuries.…”

“…Drainage must be carried out with an urgent tube thoracostomy when pneumothoraxes, haemothoraxes and haemopneumothoraxes are diagnosed as a respiratory distress with physical examination and plain chest roentgenogram. 3,13 It has been considered that most of these pathologies could be treated with tube thoracostomy as a minimally invasive surgical intervention. 2,5,9,13 In our cases, 38.6% of patients were treated with only chest tube drainage and 61.4% were treated non-operatively.…”

“…Despite important developments in the management of trauma, it remains the leading cause of mortality in children and adolescents 2 . In contrast, if initial treatment is based on an accurate diagnosis by prompt assessment of pathology and by diagnostic procedure, chest injuries are treatable conditions, and the patient’s life can be often saved 3 …”

“…2 In contrast, if initial treatment is based on an accurate diagnosis by prompt assessment of pathology and by diagnostic procedure, chest injuries are treatable conditions, and the patient's life can be often saved. 3 The optimal care of injured children requires proper triage of the most severely injured children to the appropriate trauma centres. Thus, paediatric trauma scores (PTS) have been developed to aid in the triage of injured children and to predict the severity of injury.…”