Case Report
Copyright ©The Author(s) 2022. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved.
World J Clin Cases. Dec 26, 2022; 10(36): 13396-13401
Published online Dec 26, 2022. doi: 10.12998/wjcc.v10.i36.13396
Undetected traumatic cardiac herniation like playing hide-and-seek-delayed incidental findings during surgical stabilization of flail chest: A case report
Su Young Yoon, Jin-Bong Ye, Junepill Seok
Su Young Yoon, Junepill Seok, Department of Thoracic and Cardiovascular Surgery, Chungbuk National University Hospital, Cheongju 28644, South Korea
Jin-Bong Ye, Department of Trauma Surgery, Chungbuk National University Hospital, Cheongju 28644, South Korea
Author contributions: Seok J and Yoon SY wrote and revised the manuscript; Seok J, Yoon SY, and Ye JB contributed the patient care and management; Ye JB performed the initial emergency operation to rule out abdominal organ injuries; Seok J and Yoon SY performed thoracic surgery, including the pericardial repair and surgical rib fixations.
Informed consent statement: All study participants or their legal guardian provided informed written consent about personal and medical data collection prior to study enrolment.
Conflict-of-interest statement: All the authors report no relevant conflicts of interest for this article.
CARE Checklist (2016) statement: The authors have read the CARE Checklist (2016), and the manuscript was prepared and revised according to the CARE Checklist (2016).
Open-Access: This article is an open-access article that was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: https://creativecommons.org/Licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Corresponding author: Junepill Seok, MD, Assistant Professor, Department of Thoracic and Cardiovascular Surgery, Chungbuk National University Hospital, No. 776 Sunhwan 1-Ro, Seowon-Gu, Cheongju 28644, South Korea. suc2601@cbnuh.or.kr
Received: September 5, 2022
Peer-review started: September 5, 2022
First decision: November 11, 2022
Revised: November 16, 2022
Accepted: December 5, 2022
Article in press: December 5, 2022
Published online: December 26, 2022
Processing time: 108 Days and 14.1 Hours
Core Tip

Core Tip: Post-traumatic blunt pericardial rupture is a rare but fatal injury that is usually diagnosed with computed tomography upon admission, but the condition can be asymptomatic or misdiagnosed. If a patient with blunt chest trauma shows fluctuating vital signs and accompanying electrocardiogram abnormalities, pericardial rupture and cardiac herniation should be considered.