A 52-year-old woman was injured in an accident. Emergency tests showed rib fractures and pleural effusion. However, lung incarceration was found during the thoracic exploration that was not detected in the preoperative images. Although this occurrence is rare, clinicians should be careful of this possible pitfall, which may bring about a poor prognosis after a rib fracture.
Keywords: Rib fracture; Rib internal fixation; Thoracic closed drainage; Thoracoscope.
© The Author(s) 2023. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the European Association for Cardio-Thoracic Surgery.