C ARDIAC INJURY commonly occurs in patients who sustain blunt thoracic trauma; the incidence in patients who survive transport to a hospital has been estimated at 10% to 20% depending on the diagnostic criteria used.‘-8 Most commonly, the injury is limited to myocardial contusion and the structural integrity of the heart remains intact.’ Although the signs and symptoms of significant cardiac st...

An 18-year-old female was an unrestrained, front seat, passenger in a car involved in a head-on collision with a heavy goods vehicle. The car was estimated to be travelling at 110 km/h. The patient was ejected through the front windscreenandwas foundbyemergency services 30 mfromthecar. Initial management was according to advanced trauma life support protocol. Clinical findings included an oxyge...

OBJECTIVE To determine the prevalence of adverse events in elderly trauma patients with isolated blunt thoracic trauma, and to identify variables associated with these adverse events. METHODS We performed a chart review of 160 trauma patients age 65 and older with significant blunt thoracic trauma, drawn from an American College of Surgeons Level I Trauma Center registry. Patients with seriou...

Knowledge of the characteristics of thoraco-abdominal trauma in children is important to optimize the imaging work up while keeping radiation exposure to a minimum. Because of the plasticity of the pediatric rib cage, rib fractures are infrequent, and severe parenchymal injuries may be present in the absence of rib fracture. Mediastinal injuries are unusual. The increased mobility of solid intr...

BACKGROUND Chest trauma is an important trauma globally accounting for about 10% of trauma admission and 25-50% of trauma death. Different types and severity of chest trauma in different subsets of patients with varying associated injuries result in differing outcomes measured with mortality. Early mitigation of poor prognostic factors could result in improved outcome, therefore the need to kno...

INTRODUCTION The usefulness of thoracic damage control (DC) for trauma requiring a thoracotomy is not established. The aim of this study was to clarify the usefulness of thoracic packing as DC surgery. METHODS This was a retrospective case series study of 12 patients with thoracic trauma suffering uncontrollable intrathoracic haemorrhage and shock who underwent intrathoracic packing. Our thor...

When comparing two populations of multiply injured patients differences in patient characteristics must be controlled for. To measure the overall severity of injury, scaling systems are used. If after adjustment for injury severity, the proportion of deaths in the two data sets are still different, the difference is to be considered as due to the quality of care. However, this conclusion is onl...

conclusions due to more sophisticated diagnostic tools and surgical approaches, mortality and morbidity of blunt aortic injuries were significantly reduced over the years compared to thoracic endovascular aortic repair and or over two different time periods. objectives the aim of the present study was to retrospectively evaluate the mortality and morbidity with either treatment option. therefor...

traumatic injuries to great vessels are relative common in trauma practice. blunt thoracic trauma may result in dissection injury to aorta and innominate artery. we herein present a late presentation of traumatic innominate artery aneurysm. a29-year-old woman presented with dyspnea to our emergency department. she had previous motor-vehicle accident a month before presentation for which had und...

BACKGROUND Video-assisted thoracic surgery (VATS) appears to be replacing open thoracotomy for the treatment of posttraumatic thoracic complications. OBJECTIVE To compare operative times, complication rates, and outcomes in patients who underwent VATS vs open thoracotomy. DESIGN Retrospective review. SETTING University hospital, level I trauma center. PATIENTS Trauma patients who betwee...