Malekpour M, Widom K, Dove J, Blansfield J, Shabahang M, Torres D, Wild JL. Management of computed tomography scan detected hemothorax in blunt chest trauma: What computed tomography scan measurements say? World J Radiol 2018; 10(12): 184-189 [PMID: 30631406 DOI: 10.4329/wjr.v10.i12.184]
Corresponding Author of This Article
Jeffrey L Wild, MD, Doctor, Staff Physician, Surgeon, Department of Surgery, Section of Trauma and Acute Care Surgery, Geisinger Medical Center, 100 North Academy Avenue, MC 21-69, Danville, PA 17822, United States. jlwild@geisinger.edu
Research Domain of This Article
Radiology, Nuclear Medicine & Medical Imaging
Article-Type of This Article
Retrospective Cohort Study
Open-Access Policy of This Article
This article is an open-access article which was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/
World J Radiol. Dec 28, 2018; 10(12): 184-189 Published online Dec 28, 2018. doi: 10.4329/wjr.v10.i12.184
Management of computed tomography scan detected hemothorax in blunt chest trauma: What computed tomography scan measurements say?
Mahdi Malekpour, Kenneth Widom, James Dove, Joseph Blansfield, Mohsen Shabahang, Denise Torres, Jeffrey L Wild
Mahdi Malekpour, Kenneth Widom, James Dove, Joseph Blansfield, Mohsen Shabahang, Denise Torres, Jeffrey L Wild, Department of Surgery, Section of Trauma and Acute Care Surgery, Geisinger Medical Center, Danville, PA 17822, United States
Author contributions: Malekpour M, Shabahang M and Wild JL designed of the Study; Malekpour M, Dove J and Blansfield J collected data; Widom K and Torres D analyzed the data; Malekpour M, Widom K, Dove J, Blansfield J, Shabahang M, Torres D and Wild JL prepared the draft and finalized the manuscript.
Institutional review board statement: Approved by Geisinger Institutional Review Board under the IRB # 2014-0533.
Informed consent statement: Due to anonymity of this research, patients were not required to provide a separate consent form as being approved by IRB of Geiringer Medical Center.
Conflict-of-interest statement: Authors included in this study have no conflict-of-interest and nothing to disclose.
Data sharing statement: No patient identification data is included in this article.
Corresponding author to: Jeffrey L Wild, MD, Doctor, Staff Physician, Surgeon, Department of Surgery, Section of Trauma and Acute Care Surgery, Geisinger Medical Center, 100 North Academy Avenue, MC 21-69, Danville, PA 17822, United States. jlwild@geisinger.edu
Telephone: +1-570-2716361 Fax: +1-570-2717165
Received: June 5, 2018 Peer-review started: June 5, 2018 First decision: July 27, 2018 Revised: September 17, 2018 Accepted: November 24, 2018 Article in press: November 24, 2018 Published online: December 28, 2018 Processing time: 203 Days and 2.3 Hours
ARTICLE HIGHLIGHTS
Research background
No definite recommendation exists on the size of hemothoraces that require drainage using tube thoracostomy.
Research motivation
Hemothoraces are prevalent findings in trauma patients, yet, no standard-of-care exists that identifies need for chest tube placement based on the size of the hemothorax.
Research objectives
Identifying the cut-off size for a hemothorax based on computed tomography findings that would warrant placement of a chest tube.
Research methods
Retrospective study of a trauma center database
Research results
Patients with hemothorax size over 3 cm received chest tube. In patients with smaller hemothoraces, presence of other findings such as pneumothorax warrants placement of chest tube.
Research conclusions
Tube thoracostomy should be performed in any trauma patient with a hemothorax size of greater than 3 cm.
Research perspectives
Findings are immediately applicable to the practice of trauma surgery at our center. It would also be beneficial for other subspecialties including emergency medicine, radiology and pulmonary medicine.
