Mar 072012
When someone with a pneumothorax lies supine — as in the 23-year old man described in this New England Journal mini-case from Saweera Sabbar and Eric James Nilles of Rashid Trauma Center in Dubai, UAE — air rises laterally and caudally, and creates displacement downward and medially of the hemidiaphragm, displaying as the “deep sulcus sign” on radiographs. Here’s a nice picture of how it looks.
Sabbar S, Nilles EJ. N Engl J Med February 2012.
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