Pulmonary contusion is a bruise of the lung, caused by chest trauma. It occurs in 30–75% of severe chest injuries and is the most common type of potentially lethal chest injury. Symptoms include chest pain and coughing up blood. It can cause long-term respiratory disability and pneumonia.
About Pulmonary contusion in brief
Pulmonary contusion is a bruise of the lung, caused by chest trauma. It occurs in 30–75% of severe chest injuries. It is the most common type of potentially lethal chest injury. Symptoms include chest pain and coughing up blood. It can cause long-term respiratory disability and pneumonia. The risk of death following a pulmonary contusions is between 14–40%. In severe cases, symptoms may occur as quickly as three or four hours after the trauma. Hypoxemia typically becomes progressively worse over 24–48 hours after injury. The more severe the injury, the more likely it is to cause death in a quarter to half of cases. People with severe contusions may have bronchorrhea and bloody spum. Coughing up up blood and wheezing are other signs. The area of the chest wall near the contusion may be tender or painful. Signs and symptoms take time to develop, and many as many as half as many cases are asymptomatic at the initial presentation. The most severe cases of pulmonary contusion are more likely to be associated with complications including pneumonia and acute respiratory distress syndrome, and may require intensive care. The symptoms of a severe contusion can be seen up to up to half a day after the injury and can be as severe as 24 hours after it occurs. The contusion frequently heals on its own with supportive care. Often nothing more than supplemental oxygen and close monitoring is needed. Fluid replacement may be required to ensure adequate blood volume, but fluids are given carefully since fluid overload can worsen pulmonary edema, which may be lethal.
A collapsed lung can result when the pleural cavity accumulates blood or air or both. These conditions do not inherently involve damage to the lung tissue itself, but they may be associated. Injuries to the chest walls are also distinct from but may beassociated with lung injuries. Chest wall injuries include rib fractures and flail chest, in which multiple ribs are broken so that a segment of the ribcage is detached from the rest of the Chest wall and moves independently. In the 1960s its occurrence in civilians began to receive wider recognition. With the use of explosives during World Wars I and II, pulmonary contullation resulting from blasts gained recognition. The use of seat belts and airbags reduces the risk to vehicle occupants. The former involves disruption of the macroscopic architecture of the lungs, while the latter does not. When lacerations fill with blood, the result is pulmonary hematoma, a collection of blood within the lung. The latter is a discrete clot of blood not interspersed with lung tissue. It involves hemorrhage in the alveoli, but a hematomas is not inter Spinal fluid is present in lung tissue and can cause a pulmonary embolism, or a collapsed lung. In some cases, the blood flow to the lungs is impaired, leading to low blood oxygen saturation, such as low concentrations of oxygen in arterial blood gas and cyanosis.
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This page is based on the article Pulmonary contusion published in Wikipedia (as of Nov. 03, 2020) and was automatically summarized using artificial intelligence.
