Case Report
Copyright ©The Author(s) 2019. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved.
World J Crit Care Medl. Sep 11, 2019; 8(5): 82-86
Published online Sep 11, 2019. doi: 10.5492/wjccm.v8.i5.82
Successfully non-surgical management of flail chest as first manifestation of multiple myeloma: A case report
Rosana Muñoz-Bermúdez, Eugenia Abella, Flavio Zuccarino, Joan Ramon Masclans, Juan Nolla-Salas
Rosana Muñoz-Bermúdez, Joan Ramon Masclans, Juan Nolla-Salas, Department of Critical Care, Hospital del Mar, Barcelona 08003, Spain
Eugenia Abella, Department of Hematology, Hospital del Mar, Barcelona 08003, Spain
Flavio Zuccarino, Department of Radiology, Hospital del Mar, Barcelona 08003, Spain
Author contributions: Muñoz-Bermúdez R and Nolla-Salas J were the patient’s doctors at critical care unit and wrote the paper; Abella E was the patient’s hematologist, and contributed to manuscript drafting; Muñoz-Bermúdez R, Nolla-Salas J, and Abella E reviewed literature; Zuccarino F, radiologist, described the TC scan images and contributed to manuscript drafting; Nolla-Salas J and Masclans JR were responsible for the revision of the manuscript for important intellectual content.
Informed consent statement: All study participants, or their legal guardian, provided written consent prior to study enrollment.
Conflict-of-interest statement: The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.
CARE Checklist (2016) statement: The authors have read the CARE Checklist, and the manuscript was prepared and revised according to the CARE Checklist (2016).
Open-Access: This article is an open-access article which was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Corresponding author: Rosana Muñoz-Bermúdez, MD, Staff Physician, Critical Care, Hospital del Mar, Passeig Marítim 25-29, Barcelona 08003, Spain. rmunozbermudez@parcdesalutmar.cat
Telephone: +34-93-2483000
Received: March 12, 2019
Peer-review started: March 15, 2019
First decision: June 7, 2019
Revised: July 23, 2019
Accepted: August 15, 2019
Article in press: August 16, 2019
Published online: September 11, 2019
Core Tip

Core tip: This case report describes an adult patient with acute respiratory failure, secondary to flail chest because of a multiple myeloma. It shows how positive pressure in airway, in conjunction with an early treatment with bortezomib and dexamethasone, may lead to a successful outcome for such patients with an otherwise poor prognosis.