EDITOR'S QUIZ: GI SNAPSHOT
An acute left-sided hydrothorax
1 Department of Emergency Medicine, Chang Gung Memorial Hospital, Linko Medical Center, Taoyuan, Taiwan
2 Institute of Epidemiology, College of Public Health, National Taiwan University, Taipei, Taiwan
Correspondence to:
Correspondence to:
Dr C-C Lee
Department of Emergency Medicine, National Taiwan University Hospital, Yun Lin Branch, No 579, Sec 2, Yun Lin Road, Douliou 640, Taiwan; chnchnglee@yahoo.com
| The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below. |
A 78-year-old man presented to the emergency department with progressive shortness of breath of 3 days duration. He had a history of ischaemic stroke with minor neurological sequelae of swallowing and speech dysfunction. About 1 h before admission to the emergency department, he coughed suddenly and severely owing to suspected food aspiration.
On arrival at the emergency department, he was in respiratory distress with some confusion. On examination, his head and neck were grossly normal and there was no palpable subcutaneous emphysema. The abdomen was soft and flat without rebound tenderness. Chest x ray showed left-sided massive pleural effusion (fig 1
). Emergency tube thoracotomy drained 1600 ml serosanguinous fluid of an exudative nature. Chest CT was arranged to further identify the cause of pleural effusion, which showed left-sided pleural effusion, pneumomediastinum and pneumopericardium (fig 2, arrows).
Figure 1 Chest radiograph showing left-sided pleural effusion.
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Figure 2 CT scan showing a penumopericardium (arrows).
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EDITOR’S QUIZ: GI SNAPSHOT
Gut 2007 56: 698.[Extract] [Full Text] [PDF]
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