All tagged author: Navjot Kaur | DO

EBM Review Series: Picking the Right Chest Tube, Does Size Matter?

A thirty-year-old male presents to the emergency department (ED) as the unrestrained driver of a rollover motor vehicle accident. During his trauma assessment, the patient becomes progressively more dyspneic, and you are unable to auscultate breath sounds on the right chest wall. Do you reach for the pigtail catheter (PTC) (</=14 French) or the large bore catheter (LBC) that you were trained to place for a hemothorax (28-32 French)?