What is Chest Intubation
Chest Intubation
Chest intubation is a medical procedure that helps people breathe when they can’t do it on their own. It removes anything that shouldn’t be there, like blood, liquid, or air, which helps the lungs to fill up with air properly again. A flexible tube, like a straw, that a doctor gently slides down a patient’s throat and into the windpipe. This tube acts like a pathway, allowing air to travel in and out of the lungs. It’s often connected to a machine that helps push air into the lungs. The tube stays in until a special picture of the chest, called an X-ray, shows that everything unwanted is out and the lung is back to normal size. Especially if the person is very sick or during surgery to make sure they keep breathing, chest intubation method has been performed. Sometimes, this tube is also used to deliver medicine directly into the lungs or to remove any blockages that might be making it hard for someone to breathe. When it’s time to take the tube out, it’s usually pretty simple and doesn’t need extra medicine.
Reasons of chest intubation
Chest tubes are inserted for various critical reasons, primarily to address issues in the pleural space, which is the area between the lungs and the chest wall. These are some of the common reasons for chest tube insertion
1. To reinflate a collapsed lung, allowing it to function properly again.
2. To drain fluid, such as blood or pus, that has accumulated due to infection, injury, or other medical conditions.
3. To remove air that has leaked into the pleural space, a condition known as pneumothorax, which can cause the lung to collapse.
4. To treat empyema, which is an accumulation of pus in the pleural space due to an infection.
5. To manage hemothorax, where blood collects in the chest cavity, often as a result of trauma or surgery.
6. To aid in recovery after certain types of chest surgeries by preventing fluid or air buildup.
7. To deliver medications directly into the pleural space when needed.
Chest intubation procedures can be life-saving and is essential in the treatment and management of various thoracic conditions.
Procedure of chest intubation
First, the doctor gets your chest ready by cleaning it and might shave off hair if it’s in the way. They might use a special camera to see inside your body to find the best spot for the tube. Then, they give you medicine to make sure you don’t feel pain where the tube will go. If you’re having a big operation, they might give you medicine to make you sleep so you won’t feel anything. Next, the doctor makes a small cut on your chest and puts the tube in. They make sure the tube stays in place with stitches and cover it with a clean bandage. The tube is hooked up to a system that lets bad air or fluid out of your chest but doesn’t let it back in. You’ll stay in the hospital while the tube is in, and the doctors will keep an eye on you. How long the tube stays in depends on what’s wrong with your lungs. If it’s something serious like lung cancer, the tube might need to stay in longer to get all the fluid out.
Recovery
After getting a chest tube, a person’s health should get better. It’s important to keep an eye on the spot where the tube was put in for any bad changes like swelling, redness, or pus, which is a sign of infection. If these things happen, they need to tell their doctor right away. Also, they’ll probably have a small scar where the tube was.
