抄録
A 16-year-old male victim of a motorcycle crash had pneumopericardium with hypoxia requiring respiratory support. Subxiphoid pericardial drainage prevented the development of compromised cardiac tamponade before positive pressure ventilation and maintained hemodynamic stability throughout prolonged mechanical ventilation. Pneumopericardium is not uncommon as a result of various causes including transsternal surgery, penetrating chest trauma, infectious pericarditis, perforation of esophagus or stomach, asthma, difficult labor, and barotrauma in IRDS (idiopathic respiratory distress syndrome) neonates supported by mechanical ventilation. Pneumopericardium following blunt chest trauma had been a rare and innocuous condition. However, recent reports have emphasized that cardiac tamponade secondary to pneumopericardium can become life-threatening, especially in a patient requiring mechanical ventilatory support. The present communication describes a patient with pneumopericardium after closed chest injury and reviews the available literature to clarify the clinical features of this entity.
