Hamman's syndrome (spontaneous pneumomediastinum presenting as subcutaneous emphysema): A rare case of the emergency department and review of the literature

Konstantinos Grapatsas; Zoi Tsilogianni; Vasileios Leivaditis; Sotirios Kotoulas; Christoforos Kotoulas; Efstratios Koletsis; Ilias Stylianos Iliadis; Manfred Dahm; Georgia Trakada; Lemonia Veletza; Anastasios Kallianos; Haidong Huang; Christoforos Kosmidis; Michael Karanikas; Vasilis Thomaidis; Konstantinos Porpodis; Paul Zarogoulidis

doi:10.1016/j.rmcr.2017.12.004

Hamman's syndrome (spontaneous pneumomediastinum presenting as subcutaneous emphysema): A rare case of the emergency department and review of the literature

Respir Med Case Rep. 2017 Dec 11:23:63-65. doi: 10.1016/j.rmcr.2017.12.004. eCollection 2018.

Authors

Konstantinos Grapatsas¹, Zoi Tsilogianni^{1

2}, Vasileios Leivaditis^{3

4}, Sotirios Kotoulas¹, Christoforos Kotoulas¹, Efstratios Koletsis⁴, Ilias Stylianos Iliadis¹, Manfred Dahm^{2

3}, Georgia Trakada⁵, Lemonia Veletza⁵, Anastasios Kallianos⁵, Haidong Huang⁶, Christoforos Kosmidis⁷, Michael Karanikas⁸, Vasilis Thomaidis⁹, Konstantinos Porpodis¹⁰, Paul Zarogoulidis¹¹

Affiliations

¹ Department of Cardiothoracic Surgery, "Iaso" General Hospital of Athens, Athens, Greece.
² Department of Pneumonology, 401 General Military Hospital of Athens, Athens, Greece.
³ Department of Cardiothoracic and Vascular Surgery, Westpfalz Klinikum, Academic Educational Hospital, Heidelberg University and Mainz University, Kaiserslautern, Germany.
⁴ Department of Cardiothoracic Surgery, Patra's Medical School, University of Patra, Patra, Greece.
⁵ Division of Pulmonology, Department of Clinical Therapeutics, National and Kapodistrian University of Athens School of Medicine, Alexandra Hospital, Athens, Greece.
⁶ Department of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine, Changhai Hospital, Second Military Medical University, Shanghai, China.
⁷ Surgery Department, Interbalkan European Medical Center, Thessaloniki, Greece.
⁸ 1st University Surgery Department, University General Hospital of Alexandroupolis, Democritus University of Alexandroupolis, Alexandroupolis, Greece.
⁹ Anatomy Department, Democritus University of Alexandroupolis, Alexandroupolis, Greece.
¹⁰ Pulmonary Department, "G. Papanikolaou" General Hospital, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Greece.
¹¹ Pulmonary Department-Oncology Unit, "Theageneio" Cancer Hospital, Thessaloniki, Greece.

Abstract

Pneumomediastinum is a rare clinical entity that concerns the clinicians in the emergency department. We present a case of a patient with spontaneous pneumomediastinum (Hamman's syndrome) that presented to our hospital's emergency department with cervical subcutaneous emphysema. A conservative treatment with observation was performed. The patient after 24 hours of observation was discharged with a suggested follow-up.

Keywords: Dyspnea; Emphysema; Hamman's syndrome; Pneumomediastinum.

Publication types

Case Reports