%0 Journal Article
%T Chest trauma experience over eleven-year period at al-mouassat university teaching hospital-Damascus: a retrospective review of 888 cases
%A Ibrahim Al-Koudmani
%A Bassam Darwish
%A Kamal Al-Kateb
%A Yahia Taifour
%J Journal of Cardiothoracic Surgery
%D 2012
%I BioMed Central
%R 10.1186/1749-8090-7-35
%X We reviewed files of 888 consequent cases of chest trauma between January 2000 and January 2011. The mean age of our patients was 31 ¡À 17 years mostly males with blunt injuries. Patients were evaluated and compared according to age, gender, etiology of trauma, thoracic and extra-thoracic injuries, complications, and mortality.The leading cause of the trauma was violence (41%) followed by traffic accidents (33%). Pneumothorax (51%), Hemothorax (38%), rib fractures (34%), and lung contusion (15%) were the most common types of injury. Associated injuries were documented in 36% of patients (extremities 19%, abdomen 13%, head 8%). A minority of the patients required thoracotomy (5.7%), and tube thoracostomy (56%) was sufficient to manage the majority of cases. Mean hospital LOS was 4.5 ¡À 4.6 days. The overall mortoality rate was 1.8%, and morbidity (n = 78, 8.7%).New traffic laws (including seat belt enforcement) reduced incidence and severity of chest trauma in Syria. Violence was the most common cause of chest trauma rather than road traffic accidents in this series, this necessitates epidemiologic or multi-institutional studies to know to which degree violence contributes to chest trauma in Syria. The number of fractured ribs can be used as simple indicator of the severity of trauma. And we believe that significant neurotrauma, traffic accidents, hemodynamic status and GCS upon arrival, ICU admission, ventilator use, and complication of therapy are predictors of dismal prognosis.Trauma continues to be a major public health problem worldwide as it is associated with high morbidity and mortality both in developed and developing countries. Trauma also reported to be the leading cause of death, hospitalization, and long-term disabilities in the first four decades of life [1]. Thoracic trauma comprises 10-15% of all traumas [2]. Thoracic trauma directly accounts for approximately 25% of trauma related mortality and is a contributing factor in another 25% [3]. Fortunately o
%K Chest trauma
%K Rib fractures
%K Traffic accident
%K Blunt injury
%K Penetrating injury
%U http://www.cardiothoracicsurgery.org/content/7/1/35