Keywords:
Thorax, Emergency, Trauma, CT, Diagnostic procedure
Authors:
I. Turkalj, K. Petrovic; Novi Sad/RS
DOI:
10.1594/ecr2013/C-0040
Results
Average age of the patients included in this study was 43.9 years (min 14.0,
max 82.0,
SD 17.7 years).
The number of male patients was 46 (75.4%),
whereas the number of female patients was 16 (24.6%).
The length of treatment,
meaning the length of hospitalisation at the Institute for Surgery of the Clinical Centre of Vojvodina,
ranged from 1 to 64 days,
with an average of 13.8 days and a standard deviation of 14.9.
The most common cause of injury was a traffic accident (n=39; 63.9%).
The differences in the number of patients in relation to the type of injury were statistically highly significant (F=8.014,
df=3,
p<0.01),
because traffic accidents greatly exceed other causes of injury (Table 1).
Upon observing the association of thoracic injuries to other body regions,
it can be seen that chest injury was associated with injuries of other regions in 49 (80.3%) patients (Fig.
1).
Thoracic injuries were associated with injuries to extremities or pelvic bones in 33 (54.1%) cases,
head injuries in 24 (39.3%) patients,
abdominal and/or pelvis injuries in 16 (26.2%) patients and spine injuries in 15 (24.6%) patients.
The analysis of the outcome of the treatment of the patients showed that the patients were usually (20 patients,
32.8%) discharged to home treatment (Table 2).
Lethal outcome was recorded in the smallest number of cases (11 patients,
18%).
Comparing the fatal outcome with the type of injury,
we found that associated thoracic injuries were present in 10 (90.9%) out of 11 exited patients,
whereas an isolated spine injury existed in only one patient.
Independent isolated thoracic injuries did not lead to death.
According to the protocol of the study,
Table 3 presents the number of patients with injuries in various regions of the chest.
Lung parenchymal lesions,
pleural effusions and rib fractures were the most common injuries affecting 77.1%,
65.6% and 63.9% of cases respectively.
Subcutaneous emphysema was detected in 21 (34.4%) patients.
By comparing the association between subcutaneous emphysema and rib fractures we observed that: 7 (87.5%) out of 8 patients with subcutaneous emphysema on the right had a rib fracture; 7 (77.8%) out of 9 patients with subcutaneous emphysema on the left had a rib fracture; 3 (75%) of the 4 patients who had bilateral subcutaneous emphysema had a rib fracture.
We also found that 11 (47.8%) out of a total of 23 patients with right-sided rib fractures had subcutaneous emphysema,
whereas 19 (59.4%) out of the 32 patients with left-sided rib fractures had subcutaneous emphysema.