An Analysis of Presentation, Pattern and Outcome of Chest Trauma Patients at an Urban Level 1 Trauma Center

Abstract

Chest trauma is an important public health problem accounting for a substantial proportion of all trauma admissions and deaths. It directly account for 20-25 % of deaths due to trauma. Therefore, this study was conducted to analyze the presentation, patterns, and outcome of chest trauma in a level-1 urban trauma center. It was a prospective observational study of all patients presented with chest trauma to an urban level 1-trauma center over a period of 3 years. Demographic profile, mechanism of injury, injury severity scores (ISS), associated injuries, hospital stay, etc. were recorded. Morbidity and mortality rates were analyzed and compared with the published literature. Chest injuries comprised 30.9 % of all trauma admissions and the mechanism was blunt in majority (83.5 %) of the cases. Vehicular crashes (59.7 %) followed by assault were the most common modes of injury. Rib fracture was the most common chest injury seen in 724 of the 1258 patients while abdominal visceral injuries were the commonest associated injuries in polytrauma cases. Majority of the patients were managed non-operatively. Inter costal tube drainage (ICD) was the main stay of treatment in 75 % of the cases, whereas, thoracotomy was required only in 5.56 % of the patients. Overall mortality was 11 % and it was found to be significantly higher following blunt chest trauma. We observed that associated extra thoracic injuries resulted in higher mortality as compared to isolated chest injuries. Thoracic injuries can be readily diagnosed in the emergency department by meticulous and repeated clinical evaluation and majority require simple surgical procedures to prevent immediate mortality and long-term morbidity.

Keywords: Blunt thoracic injury; Chest trauma; Penetrating thoracic injury; Thoracotomy.

Fig. 1

Pattern of chest injuries