Spontaneous Hemopneumothorax with Early Thoracotomy: Case Report

An Analytical Review of Spontaneous Haemopneumothorax

“…Other workers (Deucher, 1949 ;Myers et al, 1951;Beatty and Frelick, 1952;Holloway, Speir, and Sadler, 1952;Ross, 1952;Ross et al, 1953;Borrie, 1953) demonstrated its value. Indeed, in the patient described by Myers and his colleagues (1951) the intrapleural bleeding was estimated to exceed 5 litres.…”

“…This frequency is not evident in the larger series of spontaneous pneumothorax. Rottenberg and Golden (1949), for instance, reported that three of 97 consecutive cases of simple pneumothorax had massive haemothorax from which one died, while Hyde and Hyde (1951), in a similar series of 112 cases, found that five of these patients had spontaneous haemopneumothorax. This condition ranks with other forms of internal haemorrhage as a strict emergency.…”

“…Since Pitt (1900) first reported a torn emphysematous bulla attached to a fibrous adhesion, other authors (Hopkins, 1937;Hartzell, 1942) have either produced evidence of or have directly observed (Hansen, 1949) haemorrhage from a torn bulla. Yet others (Davidson and Simpson, 1940;Arst, Lahey, and Kunkel, 1950;Irwin, 1951) have shown that vessels in torn adhesions can be the source of haemorrhage or have witnessed this at thoracotomy (Beatty and Frelick, 1952;Myers et al, 1951;Ross, Dugan, and Farber, 1953), where the appearances closely resemble the occasional haemorrhagic complication in the operation of thoracotomy with division of pleural adhesions (Sellors, 1951).…”

Idiopathic Massive Spontaneous Hemopneumothorax

“…blood) hemopneumothorax since 1950.1,2, [4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14][15] Pathogenesis Pneumothorax, usually incident to rupture of blebs or bullae, is believed to be the initiating factor. With collapse of the lung, visceroparietal adhesions may be torn, providing the source of bleeding, which may be delayed as long as 48 hours.…”