• Trauma is a major cause of morbidity and mortality worldwide. Despite the advent of specialized trauma centers the outcome of patients who sustain major trauma remains disappointing. Plain radiography and more advanced imaging techniques such as ultrasound, computerised tomography (CT) and angiography, have a major role to play in the early decision making and subsequent management of patients who sustain polytrauma. This article discusses the choice of emergency imaging techniques available in chest trauma for clinicians and radiologists; their evaluation and some of the common pitfalls that may lead to errors of interpretation.

Imaging plays a key role for both, the primary diagnostic work-up, and the secondary assessment of potential treatment. Despite its well-known limitations, the posteroanterior chest radiograph remains the starting point of the imaging work-up. Adjunctive imaging with computed tomography, that recently is increasingly often performed on multidetector computed tomography units, adds essential information not readily available on the conventional radiograph. This allows better definition of trauma-associated thoracic injuries not only in acute traumatic aortic injury, but also in pulmonary, tracheobronchial, cardiac, diaphragmal, and thoracic skeletal injuries. This article reviews common radiographic findings in patients after chest trauma, shows typical imaging features resulting from thoracic injury, presents imaging algorithms, and recalls to the reader less common but clinically relevant entities encountered in patients after thoracic trauma.

Inclusion Criteria:

• chest trauma 2. recent trauma: presented within48 h

Exclusion Criteria:

• Old trauma more than 48h 2-Pt transferred urgently to operating room

Information collected by this study may contribute to the care of patients in the future who have the same lesions as those that participate in this study. The information may also improve the future management of study participants. On the other hand patients will benefit from the clinical and radiological follow up postoperatively. There are no known risks associated with participation in this study. Patients' treatment and follow up will not be altered by any means