Case report
Chest Tube Injury to Left Ventricle: Complication or Negligence?

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.athoracsur.2010.01.075Get rights and content

An injury to the left ventricle after a chest tube insertion is a rare but lethal phenomenon that is likely to occur if precautions are not seriously addressed. We present a 15-year-old girl who was diagnosed a left empyema thoracis. An attempt to place a chest drain in this young girl was almost fatal. A left ventricular repair together with thoracotomy and decortication were successful. This case emphasizes the rarity of this lethal complication and the importance of the correct technique for chest tube insertion.

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Comment

Major complications to the lung, heart, great vessels or other vital organs caused by a chest tube insertion may reach 30% but are rare in the hands of experienced physicians [3]. Apart from the two left ventricular injuries that have been reported, we only found five more reported cases pertaining to cardiac injury as a result of chest tube insertions:

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    The first, reported in 1990 by Meisel and colleagues [4], occurred when chest tube insertion using trochar resulted in a fatal right atrium

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Copyright © 2010 The Society of Thoracic Surgeons. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.