Photo Essay- Life threatening Airway injury following blunt thoracic trauma.

Abstract

Summary

Blunt Thoracic trauma is one of the common presentations to accident and emergency departments in local settings. Life-threatening Tracheobronchial injury is uncommon and carries high mortality and morbidity if left untreated. This Article describes a case of major airway injury following blunt thoracic trauma in a young male.

Article

Photo Essay

Life-threatening airway injury following blunt thoracic trauma. 

I.H.D Saman Pradeep1, Dhammika Rasnayake1.

1. National Hospital for Respiratory Diseases, Welisara.

DOI: https://doi.org/10.62474/SLJT-TXAK2497

Keywords

Tracheobronchial Injury, Bronchial trauma, Blunt Thoracic Trauma.

Case.

A 20-year-old male presented following a fall from a motorcycle and presented to the local hospital with shortness of breath. He was found to Have a tension pneumothorax and an intercostal drain inserted into the right side. Subsequent Chest X-ray revealed persistent pneumothorax and continuous bubbling from the Intercostal drain. He was transferred to National Hospital for Respiratory Disease for Further management.

The patient had undergone a Bronchoscopy which revealed a complete avulsion of the right Main bronchus. Primary repair of the Right main Bronchus was done and the repair site was covered with an Intercostal Muscle flap. He had an uneventful recovery and was discharged home on postoperative day 5.

Figure 1: Chest X ray showing Persistent pneumothorax on right side

Figure 2: Surgical emphysema seen on CT chest.

Figure 3: CT chest revealed collapsed right lung and Right Main bronchial Disruption

Figure 4: a. Bronchoscopy view at Carina.

4:b. Obliterated Right Main bronchial orifice.

Figure 5: Right Main bronchial opening seen on Posterolateral Thoracotomy.

Acknowledgements : None

CRediT statement : Both authors contributed equally

Funding : None

Competing interests: None declared.

Patient consent for publication Not applicable.

Ethics approval This study : Not applicable

Data availability statement: Images  are not available for patient confidentiality.

Supplemental material: None

Open access This is an open access article distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/.

Artificial intelligence: Generative artificial intelligence or artificial intelligence assisted technologies were not used in preparation of this article

ORCiD  Saman Pradeep https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3526-1684