© 2005 BMJ Publishing Group Ltd & British Thoracic Society
Images in Thorax
Sternal fracture with fatal outcome in cystic fibrosis
1 Christiane-Herzog-Ambulanz, Children’s Hospital of Ludwig Maximilians University, Munich, Germany
2 Department of Pediatric Surgery, Children’s Hospital of Ludwig Maximilians University, Munich, Germany
3 Department of Pediatric Radiology, Children’s Hospital of Ludwig Maximilians University, Munich, Germany
Correspondence to:
Correspondence to:
Professor Dr M Griese
von Haunersches Kinderspital, Ludwig-Maximilians-University, D-80337 Munich, Germany; matthias.griese@med.uni-muenchen.de
Keywords: spontaneous sternal fracture; cystic fibrosis; bone mineral density
| The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below. |
A 16 year old girl with cystic fibrosis (CF), with very severe pulmonary disease and osteoporosis, presented to the outpatient clinic with sudden onset of back pain. A radiograph of the spine revealed multiple vertebral fractures leading to new thoracic kyphosis. She was briefly admitted to hospital for pain control and discharged without respiratory distress. Ten days later she presented again with increasing dyspnoea and difficulties in inflating her chest secondary to a new funnel chest. Despite ongoing respiratory support, appropriate antibiotics, pain control and physiotherapy, the patient died in respiratory failure 2 days after admission. It is likely that the recent vertebral fractures (fig 1
, small arrows) generated forces on the sternum that led to the spontaneous fracture of the mid sternum (fig 1, large arrow).
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Figure 1 Lateral chest radiograph of a 16 year old girl with cystic fibrosis and severe lung disease and osteoporotic fractures of the | |||||||||
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This article has been cited by other articles:
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Raghunathan, R., Porter, K.
(2009). Sternal fractures. Trauma
11: 77-92
[Abstract]
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