Fat embolism syndrome is a rare, but serious condition that occurs in patients with fractures of the long bones or who undergo orthopedic surgery. The main clinical features of fat embolism syndrome are an altered mental status, hypoxia, and petechial rash. Cerebral fat embolism is the most severe manifestation of fat embolism syndrome because it can lead to an altered mental status. The diagnosis of cerebral fat embolism is clinical, but brain magnetic resonance image (MRI) is helpful. There is usually an interval until symptoms, such as an altered mental status, develop after trauma. We report a case of cerebral fat embolism in which the patient’s mental status deteriorated several hours after trauma and the initial findings were negative on diffusion-weighted MRI.

Fat embolism refers to the presence of fat droplets within the peripheral and lung microcirculation with or without clinical sequelae. However, early diagnosis of fat embolism is very difficult because the embolism usually does not show at the computed tomography as a large fat complex within vessels. Forty-eight-year-old male with pedestrian traffic accident ransferred from a local hospital by helicopter to the regional trauma center by two flight surgeons on board. At the rendezvous point, he had suffered with dyspnea without any airway obstruction sign with 90% of oxygen saturation from pulse oximetry with giving 15 L of oxygen by a reserve bag mask. The patient was intubated at the rendezvous point. The secondary survey of the patient revealed multiple pelvic bone fracture with sacrum fracture, right femur shaft fracture and right tibia head fracture. Abdominal computed tomography was performed in 191 minutes after the injury and fat embolism with Hounsfield unit of ?86 in his right common iliac vein was identified. Here is a very rare case that mass of fat embolism was shown within common iliac vein detected in computed tomography. Early detection of the fat embolus and early stabilization of the fractures are essential to the prevention of sequelae such as cerebral fat embolism.

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After blunt chest injuries, extrapleural hematoma may result in a collection of blood between the parietal pleura and the endothoracic fascia. Extrapleural hematoma is frequently misdiagnosed as hemothorax. Extrapleural fat sign, the inward displacement of strip of extrapleural fat on computed tomography, is typical radiological findings of extrapleural hematoma. We encountered a case of extrapleural hematoma with a presentation similar to hemothorax after blunt chest injury.

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• Hemothorax or not
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  West African Journal of Radiology.2021; 28(1): 18.     CrossRef

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  SAGE Open Medical Case Reports.2024;[Epub]     CrossRef
• Late-onset isolated cerebral fat embolism syndrome after a simple tibial plateau fracture: a rare case report
  Ta-Li Hsu, Tien-Chi Li, Fei-Pi Lai, Ming Ouhyoung, Chih-Hung Chang, Cheng-Tzu Wang
  Journal of International Medical Research.2021;[Epub]     CrossRef