Twelve patients with a chest tube positioned in the major fissure of either lung were collected prospectively in a two-year period. In eight of these 12, there was evidence of chest tube malfunction, with poor drainage of pleural air or fluid collections; in six of these eight, placement of additional tubes or tube repositioning resulted in improved pleural drainage. In all 12, the tube had bee...

PURPOSE We aimed to evaluate the diagnostic accuracy and safety of computed tomography (CT)-guided biopsy of pulmonary lesions with fine needle aspiration (FNA) using non-coaxial technique. METHODS We analyzed 442 patients who underwent CT-guided lung biopsy with FNA and non-coaxial technique to determine the diagnostic outcomes, complication rates, and independent risk factors for diagnostic...

OBJECTIVES To compare the effectiveness of two different patient size metrics based on water equivalent diameter (Dw ), the mid-scan water equivalent diameter Dw_c , and the mean (average) water equivalent diameter in the imaged region, Dw_ave , for automatic detection of accidental changes in computed tomography (CT) acquisition protocols. METHODS Patient biometric data (height and weight) w...

In this paper, a technique is presented for CT image analysis and visualization of the bronchial airways. The technique provides a non-invasive way to examine the interior of the bronchial tubes and to detect various properties of the tubes such as abnormal morphology caused by foreign objects stuck in the airways or some other disease. The input to the procedure are chest images obtained by sp...

Karimov et al. [1] emphasize an interesting subject ignored by surgeons in many aspects compared with surgical procedures. However, when not followed seriously, chest tube (CT) clogging can result in catastrophic complications [2, 3]. We congratulate the authors to draw attention to CT drainage, which is as important as ‘operative planning’. Duncan and Erickson [4] state that ‘When the full len...