Chest
Original Research: Interventional PulmonologyEfficacy and Complications of Small-Bore, Wire-Guided Chest Drains
Section snippets
Materials and Methods
The study was carried out in a medium-sized UK general hospital of 718 beds. There is no on-site cardiothoracic surgical service, and patients requiring cardiothoracic intervention are transferred to a nearby tertiary care center. The only chest drains used routinely were Cook Thal-Quick chest tubes (Cook Critical Care; Bloomington, IN), ranging in size from 12 to 20F (internal diameter, 2.9 to 4.5 mm; external diameter, 4.0 to 6.7 mm). In addition, central metal trocar-containing tubes (Argyle
Results
Complete data were available on 52 drains in 44 patients (8 repeat drains). In two further cases, drains were reported but little or no additional detail recorded; these were not included in the study. Patients ranged in age from 16 to 85 years (mean ± SEM age, 63.8 ± 2.3 years). Mean drain size was 14.8F (range, 12 to 20F), but the majority of drains used (85%) were size 16F or less (Fig 1).
The most common indications for drain insertion were pneumothoraces or malignant effusions (Fig 2).
Discussion
It was our original intent to collect data on large-bore (> 24F) trocar-containing drains inserted in the same hospital, but during the course of the study none of these chest tubes were reported as having been inserted. This may be partly due to having a range of sizes available using the Seldinger technique (12 to 20F) but probably also reflects training and experience on many medical wards. This study thus represents a prospective assessment of Seldinger drain use and efficacy on medical
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Reproduction of this article is prohibited without written permission from the American College of Chest Physicians (www.chestjournal.org/misc/reprints.shtml).
None of the authors have any conflicts of interest to disclose.
This work was performed at York District Hospital, York, UK.