Celiac artery compression is a rare condition in which the celiac artery is compressed by the median arcuate ligament. Case reports of compression after trauma are hard to find. Blunt traumatic pericardium rupture is also a rare condition. We report a single patient who experienced both rare conditions from a single blunt injury. An 18-year-old woman was brought to the trauma center after a fatal motorcycle accident, in which she was a passenger. The driver was found dead. Her vital signs were stable, but she complained of mild abdominal pain, chest wall pain, and severe back pain. There were no definite neurologic deficits. Her initial computed tomography (CT) scan revealed multiple rib fractures, moderate lung contusions with hemothorax, moderate liver injury, and severe lumbar spine fracture and dislocation. She was brought to the angiography room to check for active bleeding in the liver, which was not apparent. However, the guide wire was not able to pass through the celiac trunk. A review of the initial CT revealed kinking of the celiac trunk, which was assumed to be due to altered anatomy of the median arcuate ligament caused by spine fractures. Immediate fixation of the vertebrae was performed. During recovery, her hemothorax remained loculated. Suspecting empyema, thoracotomy was performed at 3 weeks after admission, revealing organized hematoma without pus formation, as well as rupture of the pericardium, which was immediately sutured, and decortication was carried out. Five weeks after admission, she had recovered without complications and was discharged home.
Although thoracic endovascular aortic repair (TEVAR) has grown to become the standard of care to treat blunt thoracic aortic injury (BTAI), the long-term effects of TEVAR are still unclear. We here present a 72-year-old man with BTAI due to a traffic accident. He successfully underwent TEVAR and was transferred to another rehabilitation hospital 2 months after the accident. However, 1 month later, he underwent gastroscopy with fever and hematemesis and was diagnosed with aorto-esophageal fistula (AEF). After being re-transferred to Niigata University Medical and Dental Hospital, we tried to convince him to undergo surgical treatment, but he strongly refused. He received palliative care and died due to rupture of the aortic pseudoaneurysm 3 days after the hospital transfer. Fatal complications like AEF may occur after TEVAR, so clinicians need to carefully follow patients who underwent TEVAR.
Non-operative management has been preferred in blunt spleen injury. Moreover children are more susceptible to post-splenectomy infection, spleen should be preserved if possible. However, splenectomy is inevitable to patients with severe splenic injury. Therefore splenic autotransplantation could be the last chance for preserving splenic function in these patients although efficacy has not proven. Here we reported four cases of children who were underwent splenic autotransplantation successfully after blunt trauma.
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Patients with traumatic aortic rupture rarely reach the hospital alive. Even among those who arrive at the hospital alive, traumatic aortic rupture after high-speed motor vehicle accidents leads to a high in-hospital mortality rate and is associated with other major injuries. Here, we report a rare case of descending midthoracic aortic rupture with blunt diaphragmatic rupture. Successful management with emergency laparotomy after an immediate endovascular procedure resulted in a favorable prognosis in this case.
Traumatic diaphragmatic rupture is an unusual finding that may occur after blunt trauma. In addition, diaphragmatic rupture occurring bilaterally is extremely rare. We experienced a 6-year-old boy with bilateral diaphragmatic rupture, whom survived after surgical treatment by open thoracotomy but, complicated with spinal cord injury discovered after surgery.
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