Outpatient Management of A Spontaneous Pneumothorax

Joseph Esherick, M.D., FAAFP, FHM
More Articles – Cardiovascular diseases, Chest Tube, Emergency Procedures, Featured Procedure, medical procedures, Procedural Sedation, Respiratory diseases
More Tags – chest tube, featured procedure, HPC updates, pneumothorax, tube thoracostomy
A patient with a hemodynamically stable spontaneous pneumothorax can be managed as an outpatient using the placement of a small-bore pigtail catheter attached to a Heimlich valve.   As the Director of Medicine at a teaching hospital, I frequently encounter…
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Pearls about Chest Tube Management

Joseph Esherick, M.D., FAAFP, FHM
More Articles – Chest Tube, Featured, Thoracentesis
More Tags – air leak, chest tube placement, Chest tube removal, chest tubes, empyema, featured, hemothorax, HPC updates, parapneumonic effusion, pneumothorax, thoracentesis, tube thoracostomy
Chest tubes, or thoracostomy tubes, have been used since the fifth century BC when Hippocrates described the use of a hollow tin tube to drain fluid that was likely an empyema from his description.[i] Chest tubes started to be used…
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