Skeletal Radiology

, Volume 45, Issue 4, pp 555–558 | Cite as

Lung injury caused by greenstick fracture of the scapular body in a 6-year-old boy

Case Report
First Online:
Received:
Revised:
Accepted:

Abstract

Complications caused by a scapular body fracture are rare, and usually occur due to concomitant injuries or nonunion. Intrathoracic displacement of a fractured scapula has only been described in two reports involving adolescents. In this report, we describe a 6-year-old boy with a parenchymal lung injury caused by a greenstick fracture fragment of the scapular body after being struck by a dump truck. Three-dimensional CT (3D CT) scan showed an incomplete fractured fragment impaling the left lung parenchyma resulting in pneumothorax, parenchymal contusion, and pneumatocele in the left upper lobe. The patient underwent emergency open reduction of the scapular fracture and chest tube insertion. A rare subtype of scapular fracture with resultant fragment rotation and intrathoracic penetration can injure the lung parenchyma. To the best of our knowledge, lung injury caused by incomplete fracture of the scapula in patients younger than 10 years has not been reported previously.

Keywords

Lung parenchymal injury Greenstick fracture Scapula 
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Copyright information

© ISS 2015

Authors and Affiliations

  1. 1.Department of Orthopaedic Surgery, Samsung Changwon HospitalSungkyunkwan University School of MedicineChangwonRepublic of Korea
  2. 2.Department of Orthopaedics SurgeryChonbuk National University Medical School, Research Institute of Clinical Medicine of Chonbuk National University-Biomedical Research Institute of Chonbuk National University HospitalJeonjuRepublic of Korea

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