DOI: 10.1097/TA.0b013e31802e3ede
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PMID: 19359944
Issn Print: 0022-5282
Publication Date: 2009/04/01
Survival of Blunt Cardiac Rupture After Asystolic Arrest: A Case Report
Excerpt
Blunt cardiac rupture is usually a lethal injury in the field. With improvements in prehospital care and rapid transport a few of these patients arrive at the hospital with signs of life.1 The prognosis is especially dismal for those patients who lose vital signs during or shortly after arrival to the emergency department. Brathwaite et al.2 reported no survivors in patients who arrived without vital signs (32 patients) and 50% (6 of 12) survival in those patients who presented with vital signs. The overall mortality in the series of Brathwaite et al. was 81%. In the series reported by Martin et al.,3 all patients requiring emergency room (ER) thoracotomy died. In the series of Perchinsky et al.,4 only three of nine patients who presented with no vital signs were successfully resuscitated. Although the utility of ER thoracotomy in blunt traumatic arrest has been questioned, occasionally patients may be salvaged with prompt thoracotomy and control of hemorrhage. We present a case of a survivor of blunt cardiac rupture and traumatic arrest without significant neurologic sequellae after ER thoracotomy.
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