Mahmood Muizuddin, Abdul Rehman, Shams Nadeem Alam, Manzar S.
Intra-abdominal visceral injuries in blunt abdominal trauma.
Pak J Surg Jan ;25(1):29-32.

Objective: To find out the pattern of intra-abdominal visceral injuries in Blunt Abdominal Trauma. Study Design: Case Series. Setting & Duration: Non probability purposive, Surgical Unit III, Civil Hospital, Karachi from May to Dec 2006. Methodology: Allpatients, above the age of 14 years of either gender, who presented to the casualty department of Civil Hospital Karachi on the on call day of Surgical Unit III with Blunt Abdominal Trauma, were included in the study. Incident in which the injury was suffered was noted. Area of abdomen where impact of injury occurred was recorded with details to injury to skin if any were noted. Any patient with penetrating trauma beyond the skin was excluded from the study. Relevant descriptive statistics, frequency and percentage were computed for presentation of qualitative and quantitative variables presented by mean ± standard deviation. Results: A total of 35 patients were initially recruited for the study yet two patients had to excluded from the study group; thus a total of 33 patients who consented to be included in the study formed the final group. Twenty out of 33 patients underwent exploratory laparotomy while 13 were managed conservatively Common clinical presentations were abdominal pain 85% distension 54%, vomiting 30% and shock 27%. Liver injury is slightly higher (30.3001o) as compared to the splenic injury (27.2791o). Post-operative complication as chest infection, wound infection and sepsis developed in more than 12 cases and death occurred in 3 cases. Conclusion: This study shows a similar pattern of clinical presentation and visceral injuries for blunt abdominal trauma, however higher percentages of surgical management could be attributed to lack of diagnostic and monitoring facilities.

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