• Journal of Trauma and Injury
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• v.27 no.3
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• pp.71-74
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• 2014

Among chest trauma patients, cardiac laceration is a rare, but severe, condition requiring prompt management. Depending on the patient's hemodynamic status, early detection rate of a cardiac laceration may or may not be occur. If a possibility of cardiac laceration exists, an emergent thoracotomy should be performed. Furthermore, patients who experience a cardiac laceration also experience different kinds of complications. Therefore, close follow-up and monitoring are required. Herein, we report a 41-year-old man with a left atrium and a left ventricle laceration caused by a thoracic stab injury.

• Journal of Trauma and Injury
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• v.21 no.2
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• pp.136-139
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• 2008

A great variety of penetrating injuries is happening due to the increasing population and violence today. An optimal surgical approach is the key factor for successful repair of a complicated penetrating injury. A 23-year-old woman fell down the stairs from the second floor and received cervico-thoracic penetration injury due to a metalic bar. The metalic bar ruptured the right jugular vein and penetrated the left upper and lower lung. Under cervico-median sternotomy, neck vessels were repaired and the left thorax was successfully entered to repair the damaged lung through the mediastinal pleura. With this approach, the patient's position did not need to be changed during operation, while reduced the operation time compared to the conventional approach (cervical incision and standard thoracotomy).

• Journal of Chest Surgery
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• v.24 no.5
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• pp.480-484
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• 1991

Traumatic rupture of the main bronchus is comparatively very rare. With the advent of widespread mechanization and high-speed era, the incidence of traumatic rupture of the tracheobronchial tree has been increased considerably. Rupture of the bronchus is an unusual result of nonpenetrating trauma to the chest. Early recognition of bronchial rupture and emergency thoracotomy and management is essential for reducing of morbidity, mortality and late complications. We experienced 3 cases of bronchial rupture caused by nonpenetrating chest trauma with or without rib fracture. Patients were suffered from dyspnea and chest pain. After closed thoracostomy, corrective surgery was performed. Postoperative courses were uneventful and discharged without any complication.

• Journal of Chest Surgery
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• v.25 no.10
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• pp.1141-1145
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• 1992

A rare syphilitic abdominal aortic aneurysm associated with pulmonary embolism and deep vein throbosis is reported. We have experienced a huge infrarenal syphilitic abdominal aortic aneurysm which caused venous compression at left common iliac vein. A 29 year-old female was admitted via emergency room due to several episodes of hemoptysis. Clinical evaluation for this patient revealed a couple of small ill-defined masss densities on the both lung field and abominal aortic anuerysm. Emergency wedge resections of left upper and lower lobes were performed because of a massive hemoptysis. Pathologic diagnosis showed pulmonary infarction. 20 days after thoracotomy an elective operation on abdominal aortic anuerysm was successfully carried out and post operative pathology finding showed syphilitic aortitis.

• Journal of Trauma and Injury
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• v.20 no.1
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• pp.47-51
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• 2007

Penetrating chest trauma caused by the components of one's own car is rare in motor vehicle accidents. We experienced two cases of penetrating chest injury caused by the sideview mirror of the patient's vehicle. One was a 25-year-old man. The sideview mirror penetrated the left chest, went through the diaphragm, and ruptured the spleen. He was in shock upon arrival at the emergency room. An emergency thoracotomy and laparotomy were done. The ruptured spleen was resected, the lung and the diaphragm were debrided and repaired, and the chest wall was reconstructed. The other patient was a 57-year-old male, who was transported to our emergency room with the sideview mirror of his truck stuck into his right chest wall as the result of an accident. He also had a right Bennet's fracture and an open fracture of the right tibia. Air had been sucked into the right pleural cavity through the wound. Multiple rib fractures and lung lacerations had also occurred. Removal of the sideview mirror, repair of the lacerated lung, and reconstruction of chest wall were done immediately. Both patients recovered without complication and were discharged.

• Journal of Trauma and Injury
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• v.36 no.3
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• pp.253-257
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• 2023

A century ago, cardiac injuries usually resulted in death. However, despite all the advances in medicine, these injuries still have high mortality and morbidity rates. In the present case, we describe a patient with a bullet injury to the right ventricle who survived at our hospital despite the limitations of our center with regard to modalities and equipment. A 30-year-old man was brought to our emergency department with a bullet wound to his left flank. He was hemodynamically unstable. After only 8 minutes in the hospital and without further investigations he was rushed to the operating room. During laparotomy, a clot was visible in the left diaphragm, which dislodged and caused extensive bleeding. The decision was made to perform a sternotomy in the absence of a sternal saw. An oblique 8-cm injury to the right ventricle was discovered following rapid exploration. It was repaired without the need for cardiopulmonary bypass surgery. After a few days in the hospital, the patient was discharged home. In the event of a penetrating cardiac injury, rapid decision-making is crucial for survival. Whenever possible, the patient should be transferred to the operating room, as emergency department thoracotomies are associated with a high mortality rate.

• Journal of Trauma and Injury
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• v.18 no.1
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• pp.47-52
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• 2005

Background: This study was undertaken to evaluate the clinical pattern of the patients with penetrating torso injury. We retrospectively analyzed the clinical symptoms, mechanism of injury, injury type including injured organ, and ultimate outcome of treatment. Our purpose of the study was to establish guideline of management in penetrating torso injury. Methods: This study consists of an analysis of a consecutive series of 94 patients with penetrating injury of trunk treated at one general hospital during 7year period (from January 1995 to April 2003) who was admitted through in our emergency department. All data were collected from the medical records and entered in a database for analysis on the following: age, sex, mechanism of injury, vital sign at admission, clinical outcome including hospital mortality, length of hospital stay, length of intensive care unit stay, requirement of crystalloid fluid and blood product. Results: Among 94 patients, there were 68 men and 26 women, with ages ranging from 19 to 82 years (average 38.2 years). The most frequent mechanism of injury was violence by others including rob (n=54, 57.4%) followed by suicidal attempt (n=24, 25.5%) and accidental injury (n=16, 17.0%). No injury was inflicted from gun. In 37 patients, systolic blood pressure at admission was under 90mmHg. The time interval from injury to admission, and from admission to operation was 57.8minutes and 4hour 12minutes each. Laparotomy was required in 70 patients, thoracotomy in 5 patients, and 3 patients required thoracotomy and laparotomy. Among 94 patients, an average of 1.7 organs were injured. The small bowel and colon were the organs most commonly wounded followed by liver, mesentery, pleura. Of the 94 patients, 6 died for an overall mortality rate of 6.4%, and two of them were not related with hemorrhage. The average length of hospital stay was 18.1 days, and 40 patients required ICU care. Conclusion: Of the 94 patients who were admitted from penetrating torso injury, no patient was injured from firearm. Overall mortality rate was 6.4%. In our hospital, firearm injury was relative rare.

• Journal of Chest Surgery
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• v.31 no.6
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• pp.604-609
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• 1998

Trauma to the thorax represents a significant portion of injuries seen in an inner-city emergency room. Although most of these patients may be sucessfully managed without thoracotomy, a certain percentage requires operative intervention either immediately or within several hours. 126 records of patients who had early thoracotomy for chest trauma from March 1986, to June 1997, in the Department of Thoracic and Cardiovascular Surgery in Masan Samsung General Hospital were reviewed. There were 96 males and 30 females whose ages ranged from 4 to 72 years, with a mean age of 32.8 years. The modes of injury were as follows : stab wounds, 55 cases(44%), blunt trauma, 70 cases(55%), and gunshot wound, 1 case(1%). Immediate operation was performed in 105 cases(84%) and delayed operation in 21 cases(16%). Indications that operation was necessary were hemorraging and shock in 66 cases(52%), cardiac tamponade in 27 cases(21%), and rupture of the diaphragm in 33 cases(27%). Most of these patients were sucessfully treated but 21 cases were resulted in death. The mortality rate was 16.6% and common causes of death were irreversible shock and hypoxia.

• Journal of Trauma and Injury
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• v.30 no.4
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• pp.166-172
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• 2017

Purpose: Thoracic traumas represent 10-15% of all traumas and are responsible for 25% of all trauma mortalities. Traumatic cardiac injury (TCI) is one of the major causes of death in trauma patients, rarely present in living patients who are transferred to the hospital. TCI is a challenge for trauma surgeons as it provides a short therapeutic window and the management is often dictated by the underlying mechanism and hemodynamic status. This study is to describe our experiences about emergency cardiac surgery in TCI. Methods: This is a retrospective clinical analysis of patients who had undergone emergency cardiac surgery in our trauma center from January 2014 to December 2016. Demographics, physiologic data, mechanism of injuries, the timing of surgical interventions, surgical approaches and outcomes were reviewed. Results: The number of trauma patients who arrived at our hospital during the study period was 9,501. Among them, 884 had chest injuries, 434 patients were evaluated to have over 3 abbreviated injury scale (AIS) about the chest. Cardiac surgeries were performed in 18 patients, and 13 (72.2%) of them were male. The median age was 47.0 years (quartiles 35.0, 55.3). Eleven patients (61.1%) had penetrating traumas. Prehospital cardiopulmonary resuscitations (CPR) were performed in 4 patients (22.2%). All of them had undergone emergency department thoracotomy (EDT), and they were transferred to the operating room for definitive repair of the cardiac injury, but all of them expired in the intensive care unit. Most commonly performed surgical incision was median sternotomy (n=13, 72.2%). The majority site of injury was right ventricle (n=11, 61.1%). The mortality rate was 22.2% (n=4). Conclusions: This study suggests that penetrating cardiac injuries are more often than blunt cardiac injury in TCI, and the majority site of injury is right ventricle. Also, it suggests prehospital CPR and EDT are significantly responsible for high mortality in TCI.

• Journal of Chest Surgery
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• v.51 no.1
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• pp.69-71
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• 2018

A bronchogenic cyst causing cardiac tamponade is a rare condition. We report an unusual case of a bronchogenic cyst that caused cardiac tamponade. A 49-year-old female patient presented at our emergency room with complaints of palpitations and shortness of breath that had lasted for 5 days preceding the visit. Echocardiography revealed a very large cystic mass compressing the left atrium posteriorly, and a large amount of pericardial effusion caused the diastolic collapse of the ventricles. Atrial fibrillation and aggravated dyspnea were observed, and the patient's vital signs were unstable after admission. We therefore performed an emergency operation. The bronchogenic cyst was resected by thoracotomy and the patient was discharged 12 days after the operation without any complications over 5 years of follow-up.