Two hundred and fifty patients with chest trauma admitted consecutively over a 6-year period to the Royal Surrey County Hospital were reviewed. This is a large series by British standards. The cause and nature of their chest and associated injuries were studied, together with the management, complications and outcome. The aim of this study was to find areas where diagnosis and treatment could b...

The pulmonary complications of a 50-metre fall to the water (a form of suicide attempt producing 87% mortality) were studied in 15 survivors. Presenting findings included crackles, haemoptysis, and hypotension. The alveolar-arterial oxygen difference was greater than 150 mmHg (20 kPa) in nine subjects on admission. Ventilatory failure developed in 10 of the patients, including all of those with...

BACKGROUND Muscle contusions are a common type of muscle injury and are frequently encountered in athletes and military personnel. Although these injuries are capable of healing in most instances, incomplete functional recovery often occurs because of the development of fibrosis in the muscle. We hypothesized that a combination of platelet-rich plasma (PRP) injection and oral administration of ...

Cardiac contusion is a potentially fatal complication of blunt chest trauma. The effects of a combination of quercetin and methylprednisolone against trauma-induced cardiac contusion were studied. Thirty-five female Sprague-Dawley rats were divided into five groups (n=7) as follows: sham, cardiac contusion with no therapy, treated with methylprednisolone (30 mg/kg on the first day, and 3 mg/kg ...

To the Editor: During the spring of 2009, a pandemic influenza A (H1N1) virus emerged and spread globally. Initial testing of the virus found it susceptible to neuraminidase inhibitors and resistant to adamantanes (1,2). As of March 5, 2010, only 264 cases of oseltamivir-resistant pandemic (H1N1) 2009 infection had been reported to the World Health Organization, but the number of cases has been...

DESCRIPTION A 57-year-old man was admitted to the emergency department with blunt thoracic and abdominal trauma after being hit by a tree. CT of the thorax and abdomen was performed. Abdominal CT showed a large retroperitoneal haematoma secondary to an injury of celiac trunk; thoracic CT showed a right haemo-pneumothorax, a pneumomediastinum, a large basal lung contusion, a small dorsal right s...

BACKGROUND We aimed to investigate the protective potential of the thoracic cage on the parenchyma in response to blunt trauma from different directions in an animal model. METHODS Female Wistar albino rats were divided into control, anterolateral, lateral and posterolateral trauma groups, with six rats in each group. A weight of 500 g was dropped from a height of 40 cm on the left hemithorax...