Ultrasound diagnosis of traumatic hemothorax

Introduction The use of ultrasonography US for accurately identifying of free pleural fluid in the emergency patients sustaining blunt and penetrating trauma has been well established over the past years Aim To present our experience concerning the place of ultrasonography in the diagnosis follow up and therapy of free and encapsulated haemorrhagic collections in polytrauma patients Material and methods Thoracic US supine chest radiography and CT were performed to assess for haemothorax in patients female and male who sustained acute trauma of the chest US findings were compared with CT findings the reference standard for haemothorax detection All examinationsand invasive manipulations were performed with the informed consent of patients Results In female and male thoracic trauma patients in the conditions of emergency from August to September year were performed conventional examinations and interventional procedures under US and CT control All of the conventional ultrasound examinations were performed immediately after the primary clinical survey in the emergency department with the patient supine In of them a sufficient amount of liquid collections was obtained favoring the diagnosis and planning following therapy Only in cases of patients with performed invasive manipulations we failed to obtain pleural fluid due to thickened pleura All FNAs were continued with evacuation of fluid Conclusion Our experience and literature reports support the opinion that US should be used as a primery method in diagnosis and monitoring of haemothorax in major trauma patients