Clinical Procedures
Resuscitative thoracotomy
Christopher Groombridge, MBBS, MSc, FACEM, Emergency Physician; Amit Maini, MBBS, BSc, FACEM, Emergency Physician; Francis O'Keeffe, MB, BCh, BAO, BA, FRCEM, FACEM, Emergency Physician; Mike Noonan, MBBS, BPhty, GradDipMedEd, FACEM, Emergency Physician; De Villiers Smit, MBChB, FACEM, Director, Emergency Physician; Joseph Mathew, MBBS, MS, FACEM, Deputy Director, Emergency Physician; Mark Fitzgerald, MBBS, MD, FACEM, Director, Emergency Physician.
Graphical Abstract
A trauma patient with cardiac tamponade may not survive transfer to the operating theatre for pericardial decompression. This article describes an approach to a resuscitative thoracotomy in the ED, which may be life-saving in these patients when a cardiothoracic surgeon is not immediately available.
Open Research
Data availability statement
Data sharing not applicable to this article as no datasets were generated or analysed during the current study.
