RETROSPECTIVE ANALYSIS OF PATIENTS OPERATED BY FLAIL CHEST

Abstract

Flail chest occurs when 3 or more ribs are broken from 2 or more parts, and paradoxical breathing mechanism occurs due to the asynchronous chest wall movement due to the floating segment formed. Paradoxical movements make breathing less efficient, resulting in poor oxygenation of the blood and potential asphyxia, and the mortality rate in the hospital is more than 33%. Flail chest treatment is controversial between conservative treatment and surgical treatment due to different study and result recommendations. Our study isolated flail chest due operated been flail chest complications in patients in intensive care and mechanical ventilation requirements, number of hospitalization days, chronic pain and drug use and investigate the cost-effectiveness of the conditions of Turkey with their impact on the mortality rate. In this retrospective study, patients (15M / 2F) operated for a total of 17 isolated flail chests (3 bilateral) between 2014-2019 were included in the study. The average number of intensive care hospitalization days of patients is 1.94 (1-7), the average number of hospitalization days is 7.3 (4-14), the mortality rate is 5.8% and the average number of plaques used per case is 7.76. and the extra cost per case is $ 886. According to our study results, it is seen that the patients we operated due to isolated flail chest have possible flail chest complications, ICU and mechanical ventilation needs, the number of hospitalization days, chronic pain and drug use and most importantly, the mortality rate is low. Although larger series are needed, we think that flail chest cases should be surgically stabilized according to these results.