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SUMMARYBackground: Road traffic injury patients admitted to 35 hospitals in Lublin region. Objective: To describe the pattern of road traffic injuries in Lublin county, Poland. Methods: Review of medical records for the period from January 2004 to December 2005. Results: Pedestrians accounted for the largest share of the Road traffic crash (RTC) injury cases (35.8%) and 46.4% of deaths. The highest mortality was observed in motorcycle occupants (7.1%) and victims with abdominal injuries (9.8%). Vulnerable road users represented 71.4% of all RTC deaths, with mortality 5.8%. Early transfers accounted for 82.5% of cases. Mortality in early transfers is 4 times higher than in late transfers.Conclusions: Poland ranks as one of the worst European countries in terms of severity and fatal outcomes of road traffic injuries. Groups of road users in Poland at the highest risk are pedestrians, cyclists, children and young male drivers. The highest mortality rate occurs among road users affected by multiple trauma and head/vertebral column injuries. Alleviation of consequences of road traffic injuries in Poland may be achieved by coordinated efforts and collective responsibility of government, central level agencies, rescue team members and community groups.

Motor organ injuries are one of the most common consequences of trauma, out of which comminuted fractures with a bone loss are the most challenging. Numerous methods are applied to treat these injuries; however, still in many cases we are unable to suggest successful medical treatment. Therefore, treating these injuries using elastic and surgically handleable bone replacement materials was started at Trauma Surgery and Emergency Medicine of Medical University of Lublin (provided for the experiments by Medical Inventi Lt). Preliminary assessment based on the results of treatment with bone replacement materials of two patients with comminuted fractures of femur was promising. Bone union was achieved without any adverse effects.

Biomaterials for bone tissue regeneration, including polymer-based composites, are typically evaluated in vitro prior to the clinical trials. However, such composites tested in vivo may behave different due to the specific body conditions. For example, some composites implanted into the tissue acidified due to transient postoperative inflammation may unexpectedly swell which delays the wound healing. Such massive swelling in acidic medium was previously observed for new elastic hydroxyapatite (HAp)/β-glucan biomaterial. However, in further clinical cases concerning the composite implantation in patients without significant inflammation indicators, no side effects were observed. Therefore, it was reasonable to test the effect of human serum of neutral pH (typical for noninflamed tissues) on the composite parameters, in particular volume changes. Thus, this article shows the characterization of physicochemical parameters of the composite after incubation (5 days) in human serum of neutral pH by means of weight and volume measurement, scanning electron microscopy, X-ray diffraction, Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy, microcomputed tomography, mercury intrusion, and biochemical techniques. Results showed that human serum collected from healthy people caused no uncontrolled changes in weight and volume, porosity and mechanical properties of the composite. Therefore, this suggests the lack of volume change-related side effects of HAp/glucan composite in bone defects treatment if postoperative inflammation is prevented. © 2018 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Biomed Mater Res Part B: Appl Biomater, 106B: 2653-2664, 2018.

1. The proposed method of use of the International Classification ICD-10 allows the use of regional administrative databases to conduct detailed analyzes of population and monitor trends in the epidemiology of injuries. 2. Developed Life Hazard Ratio (LHR)is a universal method for the objective evaluation of the severity of injuries and the associated risk of life-threatening, can also conduct population studies. 3. LHR has a comparable rate of diagnostic efficacy as other commonly used scales assessing the severity of the injury.