ABSTRACT
Objective To evaluate the clinical application of early total care (ETC) for polytrauma patients combined with thoracolumbar fractures.Methods A retrospective case control study was conducted to analyze the clinical data of 137 polytrauma patients combined with thoracolumbar fractures admitted to the First Affiliated Hospital of Soochow University and the Third People's Hospital of Zhang,jiagang from January 2012 to October 2015.There were 90 males and 47 females,aged 26-69 years,with an average age of 48.2 years.The patients were divided into ETC group (n =59) and TMC group (n =78).In the ETC group,physicians from different departments evaluated the patients and developed individualized therapeutic regimens to allow the patients to undergo surgery at early stage after injury.The TMC group preferentially stabilized the patient's condition or transferred the patients to specialist treatment,and then the surgery was performed electively after the condition of the patient was stable.The ISS of the ETC group was (22.15 ± 9.28)points,and that of the TMC group was (23.37 ± 10.74) points.All patients underwent conventional posterior pedicle screw internal fixation.For patients with burst fracture and nerve injury,posterior spinal canal decompression was performed.The thoracolumbar injury classification and severity score (TLICS),spinal load sharing classification (LSC),preoperative and postoperative Glasgow coma score (GCS),Frankel classification,hospitalization time and postoperative complications were compared between the two groups.Results The TLICS scores of ETC group were significantly lower than those of TMC group (P ＜ 0.05) while the LSC scores showed no significant differences between the two groups (P ＞ 0.05).ETC group had shorter hospitalization time [(11.8 ± 3.7)days ∶ (17.5 ±4.5)days] and lower pressure ulcer incidence [(5％ ∶ 21％)] than the TMC group (P ＜ 0.05 or 0.01),but the former had significantly higher wound infection rate [(17％ ∶ 15％)] (P ＜ 0.05).There was no significant difference in pulmonary infection and deep venous thrombosis incidence between the two groups (P ＞ 0.05).No significant differences were found in the preoperative GCS scores between the two group (P ＞ 0.05) while the postoperative GCS scores of TMC group were higher than those of ETC group (P ＜ 0.01).Postoperative GCS scores in both groups were significantly higher than their preoperative GCS (P ＜ 0.05).The results of postoperative Frankel classification in the ETC group were as follows:Grade A in one patient,Grade B in one,Grade C in three,Grade D in four and Grade E in two patients,with an improvement rate of 82％.The results of postoperative Frankel classification in the TMC group were as follows:Grade A in three patients,Grade B in three,Grade C in three,Grade D in four and Grade E in four,with an improvement rate of 65％.Conclusions For polytrauma patients combined with thoracolumbar fractures,ETC can shorten hospitalization time,reduce the pressure ulcer incidence,and better facilitate the recovery of nerve function,yet with higher wound infection risk compared with TMC.TMC was preferred subjectively for patients with unstable thoracolumbar fractures and high TLICS.