摘要：Background: Traumatic pneumothorax is a common condition treated in trauma centers and hospitals on a daily basis. Often these patients need to fly home after treatment. Current guidelines from Aero Space Medical Association recommend no air travel for two weeks. It is unclear that this amount of delay is necessary.Methods: We retrospectively identified 80 patients who travelled home after treatment or identification of traumatic pneumothorax. These cases were reviewed to determine the time between thoracostomy tube removal and commercial flight. Adverse outcomes were determined by review of the patients’ records.Results: 80 patients were reviewed including 5 patients with pneumothorax only visible on CT scan who were not treated with tube thoracostomy. None of the 80 patients developed flight related complications. The median number of days until flight after chest tube removal was 6. Fifty-eight patients (77.3%) flew within 9 days. Ten patients treated with tube thoracostomy had stable small residual pneumothoraces at the time of flight. None had problems and 8 of the 10 (80%) flew within 5 days. All 5 patients with small pneumothoraces seen on CT imaging only and treated without chest tubes were able to fly without encountering problems.Conclusion: Commercial flight of patients with treated or a small stable pneumothorax before 14 days appears to be safe. Strict adherence to Aerospace Medical Association guidelines is unnecessary and not supported by available evidence. Level of evidence; Retrospective review Level IIIKeywords: Pneumothorax; airtravel; trauma; Alaska(Published: 10 April 2014)Citation: Int J Circumpolar Health 2014, 73: 24178 - http://dx.doi.org/10.3402/ijch.v73.24178
