We present a case of a patient with severe chronic obstructive pulmonary disease who developed dramatic mediastinal and subcutaneous emphysema, without pneumothorax, following a difficult intubation. Misdiagnosis of tracheal rupture as barotrauma from alveolar overdistention initially delayed intervention and caused persistence of subcutaneous emphysema. Despite efforts to minimize tidal volume...

Subcutaneous emphysema is the novo infiltration of air in subcutaneous layer skin. The incidence varies from 0.43% to 2.34%. and can result surgical, traumatic, infectious, or idiopathic processes. Air enter tissue through occupational accidents, as occurred our clinical presentation; on physical examination, most common finding associated with crepitus palpation. It important make a timely dia...

Pneumomediastinum, the presence of free air within the mediastinal cavity, is sometimes accompanied by subcutaneous emphysema and pneumorrhachis (air within the spinal canal). We report the case of a 28-year-old man with previously undiagnosed HIV who was diagnosed with extensive pneumomediastinum, pneumorrhachis, and subcutaneous emphysema secondary to Pneumocystis jiroveci pneumonia after pre...

Increasing surgical interest in bullous emphysema has been manifest in recent years. Justification for surgery in many series of cases has been vague but there is more and more agreement on the necessity for considering an increasing number of these patients for surgery. The first American reference on this subject was in 1925 when Koontz reviewed the literature and collected 105 cases. The sur...

We report an unusual case where a two-month infant developed a simultaneous and spontaneous pneumocephalus and gross pneumoperitoneum along with progressive surgical emphysema after VP shunt procedure.

A new pathological entity is here described-a polyalveolar lobe with or without emphysemagiving rise to the clinical features of childhood lobar emphysema. A detailed and quantitative study of the airways, alveoli and arteries was carried out on the left upper lobe removed because of shortness of breath, thought to be due to 'childhood lobar emphysema'. The child was 17 days old and the radiogr...