title: Life threatening hemoperitoneum and liver injury as a result of chest tube thoracostomy.
abstract: Common complications of chest tube thoracostomy (CTT) include lung laceration, chest wall bleeding, improper position of tube, subcutaneous emphysema, and so on. Although intra-abdominal injury because of CTT was possible in stomach, spleen, and liver, published reports are rare and no case of life-threatening hemoperitoneum because of CTT has been published in the literature. Here, we present a rare case of life-threatening hemoperitoneum and liver injury because of CTT. We successfully treated the case with emergent laparotomy. Owing to great rarity and particular rare complication of CTT, we report this case with a review of literature.
authors.affiliation: Department of Surgery, College of Medicine, Yeungnam University, Daegu, Korea.
authors.forename: Jung-Min
authors.initials: JM
authors.lastname: Bae
keywords: hemoperitoneum; liver injury; thoracostomy