Need for a change – Extended-FAST to extended diaphragmatic-FAST

Abstract

Post-traumatic hypoxia can be due to different causes, namely airway problems, pneumothorax, hemothorax, lung contusion, flail chest, traumatic diaphragmatic injuries (TDI), aspiration due to low sensorium, a respiratory paradox in cervical spine injury, severe hypotension, etc., It is a great challenge to identify the cause of hypoxia in a trauma setting because the contributing factors can be multiple or can be a remote cause, which is often missed out. Here, we describe a 50-year-old female who presented to our emergency department with Post-traumatic hypoxia whose sensorium, blood pressure, chest X-ray, E-FAST computed tomography of brain, and other baseline investigation were completely normal, diagnosed later as TDI with the help of diaphragmatic ultrasound and computed tomography of thorax.

Keywords

• extended diaphragmatic - fast
• post-traumatic hypoxia
• traumatic diaphragmatic injury