General thoracic and cardiovascular surgery
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Gen Thorac Cardiovasc Surg · Mar 2010
Case ReportsEmergency video-assisted thoracoscopic foreign body removal and decortication of lung after chest trauma.
Video-assisted thoracoscopy can be a useful tool in selected chest trauma patients for diagnostic and therapeutic purposes. A metallic foreign body, embedded in peripheral lung parenchyma, was removed successfully with blood clot evacuation and limited decortication of lung in a hemodynamically stable 10-year-old patient using a video-assisted thoracoscopic technique.
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Chylothorax is usually a complication of thoracic surgery procedures. Over a 5-year period we encountered three cases of chylothorax following abdominal surgery performed in general surgery units. The initial effusions, not lactescent, were ascribed to a pleural reaction that sometimes is observed during the postoperative period after abdominal surgery. ⋯ A video-assisted thoracoscopy procedure was undertaken, but the extensive pleural effusions, caused in part by the delay in the diagnosis, prevented the exact localization of the duct and its closure. Talc pleurodesis was successfully employed in all patients. Even after abdominal surgery, a persistent pleural effusion should always induce us to suspect a chylothorax.