What is the main cause of death in a tension pneumothorax?!
Question: Tension pneumothorax causes the air pressure to build up in the chest and thereby increase interthorax pressure as a whole. This will cause a shift of the medial stenial area and compress not only the heart but decrease venous return as well. The patient will die of a combination of suffication due to an inability to oxygenate and cardiac failure due to pump system malfuction secondary to pressure injury.
Answers: Tension pneumothorax causes the air pressure to build up in the chest and thereby increase interthorax pressure as a whole. This will cause a shift of the medial stenial area and compress not only the heart but decrease venous return as well. The patient will die of a combination of suffication due to an inability to oxygenate and cardiac failure due to pump system malfuction secondary to pressure injury.
The heart becomes so compressed that it can no longer beat.
Fluid, usually blood, fills the pericardium. The fluid resists the pumping motion of the heart, hence the "tension". This is a life threatening emergency and requires surgical intervention.
A tension pneumothorax is a complete collapsed of the lung, therefore I would guess asphyxiation?
Tension pneumothorax occurs when the air traps within the pleural cavity "under pressure". The mechanism here is that the injured tissue forms a "one-way valve" causing the air to build up within the space during each inspiration but, not allowing to escape on expiration.
This results in increasing pressure within the pleural cavity thus causing a shift of mediastinal structures like trachea, and inferior venacava to one side(unaffected side).
If left unnoticed, it results in poor venous return which in turn reduce cardiac output causing tissue hypoxiemia. It is further aggravated by the primary hypoxia that is produced by the affected lung(collapsed).
So the death ensue as a result of hypoxia which is produced by the combination of cardiovascular collapse and the collapsed lung.
Hope, it helps.