EMERGENCY CASEBOOK
Spontaneous massive haemothorax caused by rupture of an intercostal vein
1 Division of Thoracic Surgery, Department of Surgery, Tri-Service General Hospital, National Defense Medical Center, Taipei, Taiwan, Republic of China
2 Division of General Surgery, Department of Surgery, Tri-Service General Hospital, National Defense Medical Center, Taipei, Taiwan, Republic of China
Correspondence to:
Correspondence to:
Dr Y-L Cheng
Division of Thoracic Surgery, Tri-Service General Hospital, 325, Sec. 2, Chen-Kung Rd, Neihu 114, Taipei, Taiwan, Republic of China; ndmc0928{at}yahoo.com.tw
Spontaneous massive haemothorax is rare. We describe a healthy 44 year old woman who experience sudden onset chest pain while sleeping. Chest radiograph revealed massive right pleural effusion. Progressive dyspnoea, cold sweating, and tachycardia developed later. A tube thoracostomy was performed immediately and massive haemothorax was noted. An emergency thoracotomy was performed because of unstable vital signs. Disruption of the right third intercostal vein with continuous bleeding was observed, and suture ligation of the vein was performed. The total blood loss was about 4000 ml. The patient recovered uneventfully, and her condition at follow up visits to the outpatient department was satisfactory.
Keywords: spontaneous haemothorax; intercostal vein rupture
CiteULike 
Complore 
Connotea 
Del.icio.us 
Digg 
Reddit 
Technorati What's this?
This article has been cited by other articles:
-
Ali, H. A., Lippmann, M., Mundathaje, U., Khaleeq, G.
(2008). Spontaneous Hemothorax: A Comprehensive Review. Chest
134: 1056-1065
[Full Text]
- Full Text
- Full Text (PDF)
- Submit a response
- Alert me when this article is cited
- Alert me when eLetters are posted
- Alert me if a correction is posted
Services
- Email this link to a friend
- Similar articles in this journal
- Similar articles in PubMed
- Add article to my folders
- Download to citation manager
- Request Permissions
Citing Articles
Google Scholar
PubMed
Topic Collections
Bookmark with
Register for free content
The full back archive is now available for all BMJ Journals. Institutional subscribers may access the entire archive as part of their subscription. Personal subscribers will also have access to all content when logged in. Non-subscribers who register have free access to all articles published before 2006 right back to volume 1 issue 1. Register here to access the free archive of all BMJ Journals.
Don't forget to sign up for content alerts so you keep up to date with all the articles as they are published.
