Abdominal wall necrosis and disruption in seat belt injury

The seat belt has reduced mortality and morbidity caused by motor vehicle accidents. Nevertheless, the seat belt has been associated with multiple abdominal injuries. We present the case of a 31 year old male referred after he was involved in a high-speed motor vehicle accident. He was wearing a seat belt when he sustained injuries and bruising across the abdomen at the seat belt area. Clinical examination and Computerized Tomography were not helpful in early detection of intra-abdominal injuries. The presence of "seat belt sign" across the abdomen should increase the index of suspicion of the presence of serious intra-abdominal injuries

Accidents among elderly people attending the emergency departments of the University Hospitals in Alexandria

This study was conducted to describe the types of elderly accidents and their resulting injuries, estimate the mean injury severity score [ISS] among study cases and its relation to some variables and lastly to identify health problems of the elderly and their associated risk of accidents occurrence. The study included 259 elderly accident cases with a male to female ratio of 0.9 and a mean age of 71.1873 +/- 8.6387 years. More than two thirds of studied cases attended El- Hadra Hospital [68.34%]. Falls were the most common type of accidents among the study cases followed by road traffic accidents, exposure to inanimate mechanical force and lastly poisoning [66.02%, 22.01%, 7.34% and 4.63% respectively]. On the other hand, the most common types of the encountered injuries were fractures [59.80%], wounds [26.09%], joint injuries [4.01%] and intracranial injuries [2.77%]. The mean ISS of the studied cases was 11.7408 +/- 11.0361. It was significantly higher among patients who attended the Main University Hospitals [MUH] as well as victims of road traffic accidents. The health problems found to be significant predictors of elderly accidents occurrence were arthralgia, imbalance, coronary heart diseases, hypertension, chronic respiratory illnesses, incontinence of urine, dizziness, diabetes mellitus, as well as impaired vision and hearing

Laparotomy for abdominal injury in road traffic accidents

This study presents an analysis of 178 road traffic accident victims on whom laparotomy was indicated in AL-Gubail new hospital Eastern Area Saudi Arabia from march 1989 to February 1992. they accounted for 3.8% of total road traffic accident patients admitted to that hospital during the previous three years [1989-1992]. One hundred seventy two cases under went surgery, the remaining six died in the admission area before surgery. The incidence of male patients to female patients was 8 1. saudies comprised 56% of the victims. Diagnostic peritoneal lavage yielded an accuracy of 98% with no complications. Rupture Spleen [70 patients] and rupture liver [69 patients] were the two most common injured organs. Overall mortality among the operated cases was 20.9%. Mortality appeared to be directly related to the extent of injury to other systems involved

Hematomas subdurales cronicos / Chronic subdural hematomas

Los autores presentan las manifestaciones clinicas, los hallazgos escanograficos y los resultados del tratamiento quirurgico en 90 pacientes con hematomas subdurales cronicos supratentoriales atendidos entre 1973 y 1980. La mayor proporcion ocurrio despues de los 50 anos en hombres quienes habian sufrido traumatismos leves o moderados entre uno y dos meses antes del comienzo de cefalea, trastornos motores, cambios mentales, principalmente. Dos pacientes tuvieron el cuadro de un accidente cerebrovascular y dos presentaron solamente cefalea con examen neurologico normal. La escanografia en 45 casos mostro 51% isodensos entre ellos 4 bilaterales, 42% hipodensos y 6.6 hiperdensos. Se presentaron diez recurrencias de ellas dos pacientes murieron en el post-operatorio.