Chest tube drainage: tips, tricks and drawback

M. Rasmin*^a (Prof)

^a Dept.of Pulmonology & Respiratory Medicine Faculty of Medicine Universitas Indonesia - Persahabatan Hospital, Jakarta, INDONESIA

* menaldirasmin@gmail.com

Pneumothorax and pleural effusion are two common conditions that usually needs a drainage. For a long period, water sealed drainage (WSD) with a large bore chest tube (LBCT) was the only one to be chosen before the small bore chest tube (SBCT) was found. This catheter also known as pig tail catheter and later, another chest tube drainage (CTD) was created, the indwelling pleural catheter (IPC). All are proven useful to be used but the equipment especially those new type catheters availability, the ability of the operator and patient choice are among factors that decide. All kind of those catheter can be placed using local anesthesia and for the last two type drainage catheter (SBCT and IPC) the procedure can be done as an outpatient base. Some complications can be happened for all type of catheter i.e pain, infection, dislodgment. Chest X-ray or ultrasonography still needed before withdrawing the chest tube, while clamp is not always needed.

Disclosure of funding source(s): none