In December 2019, in Wuhan, China, the first cases of what would be known as COVID-19, a disease caused by an RNA virus called SARS-CoV-2, were described. Its spread was rapid and wide, leading the World Health Organization to declare a pandemic in March 2020. The disease has distinct clinical presentations, from asymptomatic to critical cases, with high lethality. Parallel to this, patients with non-traumatic surgical emergencies, such as acute appendicitis and cholecystitis, continue to be treated at the emergency services. In this regard, there were several doubts on how to approach these cases, among them: how to quickly identify the patient with COVID-19, what is the impact of the abdominal surgical disease and its treatment on the evolution of patients with COVID-19, in addition to the discussion about the role of the non-operative treatment for abdominal disease under these circumstances. In this review, we discuss these problems based on the available evidence.

Intra-abdominal injuries were predominantly associated with trauma mechanism and presence of chest injuries.

No abstract

Objective: to identify a subgroup of blunt trauma patients with very low chance of sustaining pelvic fractures based on clinical criteria. Methods: retrospective analysis of the trauma registry data, collected in a period of 24 months. We selected adult blunt trauma patients who had a PXR on admission. The frequency of pelvic fractures was calculated for the following groups: Normal neurological examination at admission (NNE), hemodynamical stability (HS), normal pelvic examination at admission (NPE), less than 60 years old (ID<60) and absence of distracting injuries (ADI). Logistic regression analysis was carried out in order to create a probability model of negative PXR. Results: an abnormal PXR was identified in 101 (3.3%) out of the 3,055 patients who had undergone a PXR at admission. Out of these, 1,863 sustained a NNE, with 38 positive CXRs (2.0%) in this group. Considering only the 1,535 patients with NNE and HS, we found 28 positive PXRs (1.8%). Out of these, 1,506 have NPE, with 21 abnormal PXRs (1.4%). Of these, 1,202 were younger than 60 y, with 11 positive PXRs (0.9%). By adding all these criteria to the ADI, we found 2 abnormal PXRs in 502 (0.4%) cases. The probability model including all these variables had a 0,89 area under the ROC curve. Conclusions: by adding clinical criteria, it is possible to identify a group of trauma patients with very low chance of sustaining pelvic fractures. The necessity of PXR in these patients needs to be reassessed.