New Chest Tube to Facilitate Intrapleural Injections

Background: In some cases, apart from the evacuation of the pleural space, it is required to inject a medicine into it. This procedure through the ordinary chest tubes is not an easy task since it might cause some unwanted problems for the patient. A new chest tube designed and produced by a few researchers contains a catheter in its thickness, which enables it to be used for both pleural drainage and drug entrance simultaneously. Materials and Methods: Instead of the ordinary chest tube, the new chest tube(with catheter)was inserted in 50 patients suffering from various thoracic disorders which needed intrapleural drainage and injection due to different reasons .Amongst all,26 cases had traumatic hemothorax and pneumothorax. Following pleural drainage, bupivacaine was injected into the pleural space through the catheter of the new chest tube in order to reduce pain. In 10 patients suffering from malignant pleural effusion, bleomycin was introduced into the pleural cavity as sclerosing substance to create pleurodesis. Finally, irrigation of pleural space was performed by means of the catheter for the remaining 14 patients with empyema. Results: In all cases, intrapleural injections were done easily without the need to detach the chest tube connections and the consequences were satisfactory to all the physicians. No serious complication was observed and merely mild and avoidable side effects took place in 4 patients. Conclusion: The new introductory tube provides a sterile and appropriate pathway to release different kinds of medications into the pleural space, without consuming any extra time or budget.