![]() ![]() Conservative care simplifies everything - without the need for surgery, the risk of infection is much less and the risk of injury to the surrounding tissues is eliminated. The ribs heal on their own without being wired together (or held together with any other type of fixation device such as pins or metal plate and screws). Most rib fractures can really be treated nonoperatively. These patients often end up on a mechanical ventilator (machine that breathes for them). As you might imagine, the inability to breathe normally has huge consequences. This breathing pattern is described as paradoxical.įlail chest with paradoxical breathing are risk factors for loss of adequate lung function called pulmonary insufficiency. As the patient breathes out, the opposite happens: the chest wall expands instead of contracting. Breathing is altered such that as the person breathes in, the chest wall collapses instead of expanding. To meet the criteria for a diagnosis of flail chest, each rib must be broken in at least two places. That's when nerves, blood vessels, organs, and soft tissues can be damaged creating further problems.Īn additional focus of this article is flail chest, a condition describing someone with four (or more) rib fractures in a row. Identifying rib fractures is important because they can become displaced (separate and shift in position). Most patients are treated with nonsurgical care - operative treatment of rib fractures associated with chest wall injuries is still a very controversial subject.īecause more than half of all rib fractures are missed using standard X-rays, the authors want surgeons and other physicians to know that CT scans are much more sensitive in picking up rib fractures. In this review, surgeons from the University of Minnesota Hospital discuss the importance of diagnosing and treating severe rib fractures. And in fact, one-fourth of all deaths caused by trauma involve the chest and rib fractures. ![]() Having more than one rib fracture increases the risk of complications (including death). Did you know you can die from a rib fracture? Broken and displaced with jagged edges, a fractured rib from chest trauma can puncture the lungs leading to multiple problems. ![]()
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