Chest injury
A chest injury, also known as chest trauma, is any form of physical injury to the chest including the ribs, heart and lungs. Chest injuries account for 25% of all deaths from traumatic injury. Typically chest injuries are caused by blunt mechanisms such as direct, indirect, compression, contusion, deceleration, or blasts- caused by motor vehicle collisions or penetrating mechanisms such as stabbings.

Classification
Chest injuries can be classified as blunt or penetrating. Blunt and penetrating injuries have different pathophysiologies and clinical courses.
Specific types of injuries include:

Injuries to the chest wall
Chest wall contusions or hematomas.
Rib fractures
Flail chest
Sternal fractures
Fractures of the shoulder girdle
Pulmonary injury (injury to the lung) and injuries involving the pleural space
Pulmonary contusion
Pulmonary laceration
Pneumothorax
Hemothorax
Hemopneumothorax
Injury to the airways
Tracheobronchial tear
Cardiac injury
Pericardial tamponade
Myocardial contusion
Traumatic arrest
Hemopericardium
Blood vessel injuries
Traumatic aortic rupture
Thoracic aorta injury
Aortic dissection
And injuries to other structures within the torso
Esophageal injury (Boerhaave syndrome)
Diaphragm injury

Diagnosis
Most blunt injuries are managed with relatively simple interventions like tracheal intubation and mechanical ventilation and chest tube insertion. Diagnosis of blunt injuries may be more difficult and require additional investigations such as CT scanning. Penetrating injuries often require surgery, and complex investigations are usually not needed to come to a diagnosis. Patients with penetrating trauma may deteriorate rapidly, but may also recover much faster than patients with blunt injury.

See also
Transmediastinal gunshot wound
Commotio thoracis

References


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