A chest tube (chest drain, thoracic catheter, tube thoracostomy, or intercostal drain) is a flexible plastic tube that is inserted through the chest wall and into the pleural space or mediastinum. It is used to remove air (pneumothorax) or fluid (pleural effusion, blood, chyle), or pus (empyema) from the intrathoracic space. It is also known as a Bülau drain or an intercostal catheter.
The concept of chest drainage was first advocated by Hippocrates when he described the treatment of empyema by means of incision, cautery, and insertion of metal tubes. However, the technique was not widely used until the influenza epidemic of 1917 to drain post-pneumonic empyema. The use of chest tubes in postoperative thoracic care was reported in 1922, and they were regularly used post-thoracotomy in World War II, though they were not routinely used for emergency tube thoracostomy following acute trauma until the Korean War.
Read more about Chest Tube: Indications, Contraindications, Complications
Other articles related to "chest tube, chest tubes, tube, chest, tubes":
... The most frequent complication associated with chest tubes is chest tube clogging, which is commonly caused by thrombus formation inside the chest tube, and can ... In the setting of bleeding, chest tube clogging can cause pericardial tamponade, decreased cardiac output, and even death. ... In the presence of air production, chest tube clogging can cause tension pneumothorax, and in the setting of infection, empyema ...
... used in respiratory medicine to prevent air from travelling back along a chest tube ... it to act as a one-way valve allowing air (or fluid) to flow only one way along the drainage tube ... The end of the drainage tube is placed inside the patient's chest cavity, within the air or fluid to be drained ...
... In nearly all cases a chest tube, or more than one chest tube is placed ... These tubes are used to drain air and fluid until the patient heals enough to take them out (usually a few days) ... pneumothorax, or subcutaneous emphysema can occur if these chest tubes become clogged ...
... Blood in the cavity can be removed by inserting a drain (chest tube) in a procedure called a tube thoracostomy ... expand and the bleeding will stop after a chest tube is inserted ... The blood in the chest can thicken as the clotting cascade is activated when the blood leaves the blood vessels and is activated by the pleural surface, injured lung or chest wall, or contact with the chest ...
... with early follow-up to immediate needle decompression or insertion of a chest tube ... In traumatic pneumothorax, chest tubes are usually inserted ... is greatly increased and the insertion of a chest tube is mandatory ...
Famous quotes containing the words tube and/or chest:
“Even crushed against his brother in the Tube the average Englishman pretends desperately that he is alone.”
—Germaine Greer (b. 1939)
“This socialism will develop in all its phases until it reaches its own extremes and absurdities. Then once again a cry of denial will break from the titanic chest of the revolutionary minority and again a mortal struggle will begin, in which socialism will play the role of contemporary conservatism and will be overwhelmed in the subsequent revolution, as yet unknown to us.”
—Alexander Herzen (1812–1870)