Hamman's sign

Editor-In-Chief: C. Michael Gibson, M.S., M.D. [1]

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Hamman’s sign (rarely, Hammond’s sign[2] or Hammond’s crunch[3]) is a crunching, rasping sound, synchronous with the heartbeat, heard over the precordium in spontaneous mediastinal emphysema.

Named for Johns Hopkins’s clinician Louis Hamman, M.D.

This sound is heard best over the left lateral position. It has been described as a series of precordial crackles that correlate with the heart beat and not the respirations. Hamman’s crunch is caused by pneumomediastinum or pneumopericardium, and is occasionally associated with tracheobronchial injury^[1] and often associated with Boerhaave syndrome (oesophagal rupture).

• Hamman’s syndrome

Template:Eponymous medical signs for circulatory and respiratory systems

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