Shin Sung Jin, Wang Sung Il, Kim Jung Ryul
Department of Orthopaedic Surgery, Samsung Changwon Hospital, Sungkyunkwan University School of Medicine, Changwon, Republic of Korea.
Department of Orthopaedics Surgery, Chonbuk National University Medical School, Research Institute of Clinical Medicine of Chonbuk National University-Biomedical Research Institute of Chonbuk National University Hospital, 567 Baekje-ro, Dukjin-gu, Jeonju, Republic of Korea.
Skeletal Radiol. 2016 Apr;45(4):555-8. doi: 10.1007/s00256-015-2262-x. Epub 2015 Oct 2.
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.
