Video-Assisted Thoracic Surgery (VATS) for Stabbing Thoracic Injury

The patient was a 30-year-old male who was found after he had stabbed himself in the left side of the chest and collapsed. He was brought to our hospital to undergo immediate drainage of the thoracic cavity. The chest X-ray and chest computed tomography findings showed that the knife was situated from the left cardiac border toward the proximity of the diaphragm, thus resulting in hemopneumothorax. The patient’s vital signs were stable, and we believed that it was important to avoid secondary injury when removing the knife from the thoracic cavity. Therefore, we performed video-assisted thoracic surgery (VATS). We resected the considerably crushed lung and sutured the lacerated myocardium by VATS. The postoperative course was good. We believe that VATS for thoracic injury can be an effective surgical option if a patient’s vital signs are stable.