Pneumoperitoneum

¹ The Department of Medicine, Tulane University School of Medicine and the Charity Hospital of Louisiana.

1) The combination of phrenic crush and pneumoperitoneum is a valuable form of pulmonary collapse therapy.

2) When used as part of a collapse therapy program in tuberculosis, it increases the percentage of patients who can be brought to the stage of "apparent cure."

3) The technic is simple, and the complications few.

4) It should be used for any patient suited to collapse therapy but not suited to thoracoplasty or to artificial pneumothorax.

5) When the indications have become better established, it is possible that it may supplant some of the now more commonly employed measures. Until the demonstration of such indications, it should be used only in conjunction with, and not instead of, other measures.

6) Satisfactory results may be expected only if there has been a satisfactory rise in the diaphragm with corresponding pulmonary relaxation.

7) The electrocardiographic pattern obtained is similar to that of acute cor pulmonale but can be shown to be due to cardiac rotation with corresponding movement of the ventricular gradient.