• Giovanni Volpicelli and Bruno Audino.
• Department of Emergency Medicine, San Luigi Gonzaga University Hospital, 10043 Orbassano Torino, Italy. gio.volpicelli@tin.it
• Am J Emerg Med. 2011 Mar 1;29(3):355.e1-2.

AbstractLung ultrasound is extremely useful in the bedside diagnosis of pneumothorax. The lung point, which is the sonographic demonstration of the point on the chest wall where the pleural layers adhere again, represents the limit of the pneumothorax extension and allows estimation of its volume. This sonographic sign is not only highly accurate in ruling-in pneumothorax but also helps the clinician in deciding whether to place a chest tube. We report a case of a young patient with spontaneous pneumothorax showing a double lung point. The double lung point is explained by the fact that the air is not free in the pleural space but forms a bulla surrounded by adherent pleural layers. In this case, the ultrasound examination could be confounding and the clinician should be aware of it. This phenomenon is quite rare in the juvenile spontaneous pneumothorax, being more frequent in case of secondary pneumothorax.

11 keywords...

hide…