Algorithms
Emergencies
Tension Pneumothorax
A clinical diagnosis. Don't wait for an X-ray in a crashing patient: decompress, then place a chest tube.
Interactive pathway
- Assess
Suspect tension pneumothorax
- Trauma, positive-pressure ventilation, CPR, central line placement
- Hypoxia, hypotension, unilateral absent breath sounds, rising airway pressures
- Tracheal deviation and JVD are late or unreliable
- POCUS: absent lung sliding, lung point
- Decision
Hemodynamically unstable or in arrest?