TY  - JOUR
T1  - The death of another sacred cow: Comment on “radiologic evaluation of alternative sites for needle decompression of tension pneumothorax”
AU  - Schreiber MA
Y1  - 2012/09/01
N1  - 10.1001/archsurg.2012.759
JO  - Archives of Surgery
SP  - 818
EP  - 819
VL  - 147
IS  - 9
N2  - 
Generations of advanced trauma life support students have been taught that placing a 5-cm needle in the fifth ICS at the MCL is one of the fastest and easiest ways to save the life of a patient with a tension pneumothorax. This article1 is another in a series of assaults by Dr Inaba and his colleagues on this very basic concept. In their previous work,2 Dr Inaba placed 5-cm needles in cadavers and then performed thoracotomies to see whether the needles entered the chest. They found that 100% of needles placed in the fifth ICS at the AAL entered the chest, while only 58% of needles placed in the second ICS at the MCL did so.

SN  - 0004-0010
M3  - doi: 10.1001/archsurg.2012.759
UR  - http://dx.doi.org/10.1001/archsurg.2012.759
ER  -