Dual Core Chest Tube Fix

Chest injury is the direct cause of death in 25% of blunt trauma victims and a contributing factor in up to another 50% of trauma deaths. Common after of chest trauma is pneumothorax and haemothorax, often combined with multiple rib fractures. These injuries are potential life threatening because blood and air within the chest compresses the respiratory and circulatory structures. Thus, prompt diagnosis and immediate treatment is needed to prevent patient death. Despite the high prevalence of thoracic trauma, the majority of patients can be managed non-operatively, with only between 3-9% requiring open chest surgery (i.e. thoracostomy). In fact, 18-40% of the chest injuries can be treated with tube thoracostomy alone. The latter is the procedure where a plastic tube is inserted into the chest cavity to drain blood and air surrounding the heart and lungs. However, this invasive procedure comes with a high complication rate (i.e. in up to 22% of all cases) including pain, bleeding and infections. In addition, the chest tube may fall out if the drain is not secured tightly to the chest wall. This Proof-of-concept project is based upon a novel fixation device called the Dual Core Chest Tube FixTM aimed to anchor chest tubes to the chest wall in trauma patients. This fixation method prevents the tube form dislodging when the patients move or are being transported. The time from skin incision until the chest tube is properly secured will be considerable less than the techniques available today: preliminary trials indicate that that the time required is as low as one-third of the most commonly used suture technique. In addition, the dual core plate will seal of any leakage of air around the chest tube and stop bleeding from the skin incision. All the above makes it very suited for trauma patients in immediate need of chest drainage, especially in challenging environments such as prehospital, battle-field, remote areas and emergency departments.