Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2015 Jan;56(1):220-6.
doi: 10.3349/ymj.2015.56.1.220.

Epidemiology of trauma patients and analysis of 268 mortality cases: trends of a single center in Korea

Chun Sung Byun  1 , Il Hwan Park  2 , Joong Hwan Oh  1 , Keum Seok Bae  3 , Kang Hyun Lee  4 , Eunbi Lee  5
Affiliations

Epidemiology of trauma patients and analysis of 268 mortality cases: trends of a single center in Korea

Chun Sung Byun et al. Yonsei Med J. 2015 Jan.

Abstract

Purpose: There is an increasing incidence of mortality among trauma patients; therefore, it is important to analyze the trauma epidemiology in order to prevent trauma death. The authors reviewed the trauma epidemiology retrospectively at a regional emergency center of Korea and evaluated the main factors that led to trauma-related deaths.

Materials and methods: A total of 17007 trauma patients were registered to the trauma registry of the regional emergency center at Wonju Severance Christian Hospital in Korea from January 2010 to December 2012.

Results: The mean age of patients was 35.2 years old. The most frequent trauma mechanism was blunt injury (90.8%), as well as slip-and-fall down injury, motor vehicle accidents, and others. Aside from 142 early trauma deaths, a total of 4673 patients were admitted for further treatment. The most common major trauma sites of admitted patients were on the extremities (38.4%), followed by craniocerebral, abdominopelvis, and thorax. With deaths of 126 patients during in-hospital treatment, the overall mortality (142 early and 126 late deaths) was 5.6% for admitted patients. Ages ≥55, injury severity score ≥16, major craniocerebral injury, cardiopulmonary resuscitation at arrival, probability of survival <25% calculated from the trauma and injury severity score were independent predictors of trauma mortality in multivariate analysis.

Conclusion: The epidemiology of the trauma patients studied was found to be mainly blunt trauma. This finding is similar to previous papers in terms of demographics and mechanism. Trauma patients who have risk factors of mortality require careful management in order to prevent trauma-related deaths.

Keywords: Trauma; epidemiology; injury severity score; mortality; predictor.

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

The authors have no financial conflicts of interest.

Figures

Fig. 1
Fig. 1
Age and sex distribution of trauma patients.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

Comment in

References

    1. Gross CP, Anderson GF, Powe NR. The relation between funding by the National Institutes of Health and the burden of disease. N Engl J Med. 1999;340:1881–1887. - PubMed
    1. Laxminarayan R, Mills AJ, Breman JG, Measham AR, Alleyne G, Claeson M, et al. Advancement of global health: key messages from the Disease Control Priorities Project. Lancet. 2006;367:1193–1208. - PubMed
    1. World Health Organization. The World Health Report 2003: Shaping the Future. Geneva: World Health Organization; 2003.
    1. National Emergency Medical Center. Annual Report of Emergency Medicine. Seoul: Ministry for Health, Welfare and Family Affairs; 2007-2011.
    1. Lagarde E. Road traffic injury is an escalating burden in Africa and deserves proportionate research efforts. PLoS Med. 2007;4:e170. - PMC - PubMed

MeSH terms