Severe chest trauma remains a leading cause of trauma death after head injury (1).
The accurate assessment of thoracic trauma is difficult because of the variety of injuries associated with skeletal trauma and other complications risk factors.
The presence of a pulmonary contusion suggest major injury to the chest,
with primary etiological causes including falls and motor vehicle accidents (2).
In our specific population,
the impairment of pulmonary function is frequent and multifactorial (3).
The implication of chest trauma in mortality is related to the persistent respiratory insufficiency,
the development of septic complications such as pneumonia,
and multisystemic organ failure.
The occurrence of pneumonia has been show to proceed and promote post-traumatic multisystemic organ failure and late mortality (4,5).
Although the management of pulmonary trauma is mostly supportive,
this plays a key role in the second phase of the management of the polytrauma patient.
Multidetector- CT (MDCT) exams,
following the first one,
are essential to follow the evolution of pulmonary parenchymal lesions previously reported,
because they can help us understand how
them will develop during hospitalization.
Some specific parenchymal pattern may represent the "tell-tale sign" of an infectious complication,
which can be managed and resolved early,
without waiting for the complete appearance.
The identification of patter "risk" for development of infectious complications can help in making precise directions in the choice of medical or pharmacological preventive measures .
Aim of this work is to evaluate,
with MDCT,
the incidence of infectious complications in major thoracic trauma,
their main CT patterns,
their timing of onset compared to first exam,
and outcomes.Our retrospective study would like to identify,
if possible,
early CT signs of infectious thoracic disease,
to rapidly attend therapy and reduce long-term complications,
morbidity and mortality.