RESUMO
Introduction: Chest trauma is one of the most serious injuries of the chest and also a common cause of significant disabilityand mortality. Chest trauma is the leading cause of death from physical trauma after head and spinal cord injury. Thoracicinjuries are primary or a contributing cause of about one-fourth of all trauma-related deaths. Traumatic chest injuries are onthe rise mainly due to increased frequency of road traffic accidents (RTAs) and rise in community disharmony. Chest injuriesare one of the common causes of major mortality and morbidity. The management of traumatic chest injuries depends on theseverity of injury, patient accessibility to nearby hospital, and availability of resources at tertiary care center.Materials and Methods: It is a prospective study of a total of 134 patients presenting to the emergency department with chest injuriesof varying severity in Sanjay Gandhi Memorial Hospital from 1 June 2018, to 31 May 2019 had been carried out. Data collectedregarding common injury modes, age and gender distribution, pre-hospitalization practices, clinical presentations, associated injuries,severity of injuries, and management options from the hospital record section and these data were analyzed with descriptive statistics.Results: Chest trauma is most common in males in their thirties with mean age of presentation 33.47 years. The most commonmode of injury was RTA 69.4%, followed by fall from height 14.9% and assault 11.1%. Pain in chest (53%) was the most commonsymptom of blunt trauma chest in the patients of our study sample followed by dyspnea (31%) and asymptomatic (9%). Clinicalsign was tenderness over chest. About 61.2% of patients found with collection in pleural cavity, in which hemothorax (23.9%)was the most common collection followed by pneumothorax (22.4%) and hemopneumothorax (15.7%).Conclusions: Chest injury is seen commonly in RTA patients. Most of the patients of chest injury had soft tissue trauma overchest in the form of abrasions and majority of these patients can be managed by symptomatic care and simple life-savingintervention, i.e. intercostal drainage. With increased RTAs, it is needed to have public awareness regarding road safetymeasures and educating them about the first aid measures for trauma patients.