Introduction:

Chest trauma is a cause of death in 25% of patients with major systemic trauma. One of the most common pathological phenomena in thoracic trauma is the persistence of intrapleural collections (residual hemothorax). Residual hemothorax ranges from 1-20% of posttraumatic hemothorax.

Material and methods:

We retrospectively analyzed the records of patients diagnosed with residual hemothorax in a period from January 1, 2015 to June 30, 2017, in order to identify the factors associated with higher hospitalization days, cost and morbidity and mortality which entails the initial management.

Results:

We reviewed 29 files: the main causes were: 37.9% falls and 31% per knife. 79.3% of the patients were initially treated with thoracic drainage and in 10.3% there was no previous management. All patients had been managed in a second level hospital.

Conclusions:

It is important to identify the factors that predispose to failure in the management of this pathology and to have the necessary training for the initial resolution in second level hospital units to avoid saturation of hospital services in reference units.