[Cardiac arrest following blunt chest injury. Emergency thoracotomy without ifs or buts?]

In German-speaking countries, most serious thoracic injuries are attributable to the impact of blunt force; they are the second most frequent result of injury after head injury in polytrauma patients with multiple injuries. Almost one in every three polytraumatized patients with significant chest injury develops acute lung failure, and one in every four, acute circulatory failure. The acute circulatory arrest following serious chest injury involves a high mortality rate, and in most cases it reflects a tension pneumothorax, cardiac tamponade, or hemorrhagic shock resulting from injury to the heart or one of the large vessels close to it. Brisk drainage of tension pneumothorax and adequate volume restoration are therefore particularly important in resuscitation of multiply traumatized patients, as are rapid resuscitative thoracotomy to allow direct heart massage, drainage of pericardial tamponade, and control of hemorrhage. However the probability of survival described in the literature is very low for patients sustaining severe chest trauma with acute cardiac arrest. The case report presented here describes a female polytrauma patient who suffered an acute cardiac arrest following cardiac tamponade after admission in the emergency department and who survived without neurological deficits after an emergency thoracotomy. Selections from the topical literature can help the treating physician in the emergency department in making decisions on whether an emergency thoracotomy is indicated after a blunt chest injury and on the procedure itself.