Medical image of the month: Hampton hump and Palla sign

Abstract

No abstract available. Article truncated after 150 words. A 51-year-old lady presented to emergency room with acute, severe, right-sided pleuritic chest pain, mild cough and dyspnea at rest. She underwent a lumbar spine laminotomy and foraminotomy twelve days prior to her presentation with limited mobility after her operation. On examination, she was tachypneic and tachycardic. Her blood pressure and oxygen saturations on room air were normal. Chest auscultation revealed a few crackles in the right lung base. There was no pedal edema or calf tenderness. A chest radiograph demonstrated a right lower lobe wedge-shaped opacity along with right hilar prominence (Figure 1). She was initially diagnosed with a right lower lobe pneumonia and was admitted to step-down unit for further management. However, her history, clinical examination, and chest radiograph findings suggested the high likelihood a pulmonary embolism. A computed tomography angiogram (CTA) of the chest confirmed the diagnosis of a pulmonary embolism (Figures 2-4). Based her clinical presentation …

Keywords

• hampton hump
• hampton’s hump
• palla sign
• palla’s sign
• pulmonary embolism
• chest x-ray
• ct scan
• diagnosis
• treatment
• pulmonary infarction