A portable thoracic closed drainage instrument for hemopneumothorax.

Abstract

BACKGROUND: Hemopneumothorax is a common sequelae of traumatic thoracic injury. The most effective treatment of this condition is thoracic drainage. Despite the common occurrence of this condition, available instruments are difficult to use emergently, particularly when large amounts of patients need to be drained. In the present experiment, a newly designed chest tube and thoracic closed drainage package is described and preliminarily evaluated with the goal to improve the treatment of traumatic hemopneumothorax. METHOD: Twenty canines were divided into two groups. In one group, the newly designed thoracic closed drainage package was used, whereas in the other group a currently available chest tube and bottle were used. Drainage test, ultrasound examination, flushing test, and tension test were performed to evaluate the effectiveness of the drainage package. RESULTS: We found that the newly-designed drainage tube is as effective as the common tube when evaluated using all of the chosen methods. In addition, the package is very lightweight and portable. CONCLUSION: The newly-designed thoracic drainage package is very effective in the emergency treatment of thoracic trauma and may be more suitable for the emergency treatment of hemopneumothorax.