Comparison of pediatric and adult patients with thoracic trauma in emergency department

Abstract

Article HistoryReceived 04 / 09 / 2013 Accepted 08 / 10 / 2013Anatomical and physiological characteristics of adults and children with are different from each other. Therefore management of similar thoracic injuries may be different between adults and children. Adult and pediatric patients admitted to the emergency department with thoracic trauma were compared in this study. Patients were divided into adults and pediatric. They were evaluated in terms of age, gender, month of admission, etiology of the trauma, thoracic complaints and other accompanying complaints, treatment methods applied the clinics in which they were followed, and outcomes. Of the cases, 82.8 % were male in Group I, and 77.8% of the patients in Group II were male. Of the cases, 220 (64.4%) were blunt traumas, eighty-one (35.6 %) were penetrating traumas. Penetrating traumas were 85.2% in Group I. While the most frequent cause for blunt in Group I was traffic accident in vehicle (43.8%), it was out of vehicle traffic accidents (31.1%) in Group II. Pneumothorax and hemothorax were the most common injuries in both groups, and tube thoracostomy was the most common type of treatment. In addition, determining the ratio of penetrating trauma in the pediatric group was an important finding of our study.

Paediatric Blunt Torso Trauma: Injury mechanisms, patterns and outcomes among children requiring hospitalisation at the Sultan Qaboos University Hospital, Oman

“…14,15 An interesting finding on the CT scans of some of the patients in the current study was the presence of more than a trace amount of free fluid in the absence of solid organ injuries. The presence of this fluid indicates a mesenteric tear or hollow viscous injury, both of which require surgical intervention; however, there is a lack of consensus on the correct approach to be taken in such cases.…”

“…13 Although lung contusions were the most common injury, the majority of these were included in the study, although most paediatric trauma series have an upper age limit of 15-19 years old; for this reason, differences in trauma patterns may exist. 8,13,14,17 Secondly, the current study was retrospective and focused only on hospitalised patients admitted to a single trauma centre; as such, the findings may not represent the exact CT scan rate at SQUH or the true number of paediatric blunt torso trauma cases occurring in Oman during the study period. Thirdly, the current study did not describe the precise management algorithms utilised by the ED physicians, if any.…”