ABSTRACT
The performance of a rapid spiral chest CT scan during primary diagnosis and intensive care leads, in a high percentage of cases, to clinically relevant diagnoses. In particular, occult ventral (tension-) pneumothoraces and lung contusions have been found in one third of polytraumatized patients both initially and during the sequential course. Additional insertion of chest tubes has been observed to be the major consequence.
Subject(s)
Critical Care , Multiple Trauma/diagnostic imaging , Thoracic Injuries/diagnostic imaging , Tomography, X-Ray Computed/methods , Adult , Aged , Chest Tubes , Contusions/diagnostic imaging , Contusions/surgery , Female , Humans , Lung Injury , Male , Middle Aged , Multiple Trauma/therapy , Pneumothorax/diagnostic imaging , Pneumothorax/therapy , Thoracic Injuries/therapyABSTRACT
Ultrasonography revealed a renal tumour (4 x 4 cm) in a 67-year-old man with right-sided lumbar pain and macrohematuria. In addition he had marked nocturnal dyspnoea with dry cough. He had lost about 10 kg in weight. On admission he had atrial fibrillation with an irregular ventricular rate (140 beats/min) and engorgement of the neck veins. Two-dimensional echocardiography, undertaken because of signs of increasing heart failure and a fall of systolic blood pressure to below 100 mm Hg, demonstrated a space-occupying lesion in the right ventricle, 4 x 2 x 1 cm, indicating an intracardiac thrombus or solid tumour. The heart failure continued to worsen, despite treatment with cardiac glycosides, verapamil and diuretics. Hence an exploratory thoracotomy was performed. This revealed an intracardiac tumour which had markedly displaced the right ventricular inflow tract and infiltrated the entire myocardium, but not the tricuspid valve. As much of the tumour as possible was resected, but the patient died postoperatively of heart failure. The intracardiac tumour proved to be a metastasis from the papillary carcinoma of the kidney. This had infiltrated the renal capsule and pelvis and invaded the branches of the right renal vein.