Traumatic lung

Injuries to the lung can be due to many causes such as blast injury, fat embolism or injury to the thoracic cage. The term "traumatic lung" refers to changes in the lung which occur in trauma elsewhere in the body such as head injuries or associated with shock. The lung parenchyma can show oedema, haemorrhage or desquamative alveolitis or a combination of any of these. Electron microscopy may show granularity of the endothelial cells of the capillary with widening of the canal between the cells. There may also be oedema of the basement membrane and degenerative changes in the alveolar epithelium followed by swelling and desquamation. From the medicolegal aspect it is not possible to state that trauma can be the sole cause of these changes as a similar picture can be produced by other conditions such as oxygen toxicity, viral infections and toxins, and a full clinical history is important in diagnosis. © 1972.