A clinical case of a child with bronchial rupture due to blunt chest trauma

Abstract

This review is devoted to a rare pathology – traumatic bronchial breakage in a child. Posttraumatic tracheobronchial breakage is a rare but life-threatening injury. It is a difficult diagnosis for an emergency physician and requires a high level of suspicion. Diagnosis of this type of injury is difficult and requires a high degree of clinical alertness. Chest injuries with breakage of the trachea and bronchus are characterized by a severe clinical course, often accompanied by shock and a significant number of purulent-septic complications and, in combination with multiple injuries, entail high mortality. According to various authors, the mortality in combined chest trauma makes from 5–8 % to 18.9 %. The main cause of mortality is shock and ongoing internal bleeding. Rib fractures, flail chest, aortic injury, and diaphragmatic rupture are more common in adults, whereas pulmonary contusion, pneumothorax, and intrathoracic injury without bone fracture are more common in children. The different patterns of injury can be explained by anatomical and physiological differences between children and adults. The trachea is relatively narrow, short, and more easily compressed in children, so small changes in the caliber of the airway due to external compression or inhalation of a foreign body can lead to more serious respiratory impairment. In addition, children have a higher metabolic rate and consume more oxygen per kilogram of body weight than adults, resulting in greater vulnerability and rapid development of hypoxia in the context of severe chest trauma.