Bilateral chylothorax due to blunt trauma is extremely rare. We report a 74-year-old patient that developed delayed bilateral chylothorax after falling off a ladder. The patient had a simple 12th rib fracture and T12 lamina fracture. All other findings seemed normal. He was sent home and on the 5th day visited our emergency center at Halla Hospital with symptoms of dyspnea and lower back pain. Computer tomography of his chest presented massive fluid collection in his right pleural cavity and moderate amounts in his left pleural cavity with 12th rib fracture and T11-12 intervertebral space widening with bilateral facet fractures. Chest tubes were placed bilaterally and chylothorax through both chest tubes was discovered. Conservative treatment for 2 weeks failed, and thus, thoracic duct ligation was done by video assisted thoracoscopic surgery. Thoracic duct embolization was not an option. Postoperatively, the patient is now doing well and happy with the results. Early surgical treatment must be considered in the old patient, whom large amounts of chylothorax are present.

Citations

Citations to this article as recorded by  

• Thoracic Duct Injury
  José Luis Ruiz Pier, Moheb A. Rashid
  Journal of Cardiothoracic Trauma.2021; 6(1): 15.     CrossRef

Although hemothorax and pneumothorax are common complications seen in rib fractures, focal extrapleural hematoma is quite rare. We report a 63-year-old female patient that developed large focal extrapleural hematoma after falling off a second floor veranda. The patient had sustained 3, 4, 5th costal cartilage rib fractures and a sternum fracture. She had developed suspected empyema with loculations with small amount of hemothorax. She underwent a planned early decortication/adhesiolysis by video assisted thoracoscopic surgery at the 12th post-trauma day due to failed drainage. Unexpectedly, she had no adhesions or any significant retained hematoma mimicking a mass, but was found with the focal extrapleural chest wall hematoma. She was discharged on postoperative 46th day for other reasons and is doing fine today.

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Rib fixations for flail chest or displaced rib fractures are not a new technique. However, reports on rib fixations involving costal cartilage fractures are very few and surprisingly there are no reports of internal fixations involving only the costal cartilage in the English literature. The diagnosis is difficult and the necessity of the procedure may be quite controversial. Placing plates in screws into the costal cartilage alone may seem unstable and easily dislodged or stripped through the cartilage. We report a 31-year-old male scuba diver instructor who underwent rib fixations over his 7th and 8th costal cartilage ribs for severe pain. The procedure was done with conventional plates and screws. He had the plates and screws removed 2 months later due to lingering pain, but with them removed he is now quite happy with the results without pain. The procedure for fixation of painful overlapped costal cartilage is quite simple and can be done with the usual conventional methods, fixating plate and screws directly over the cartilage alone without fixation over the bony rib.