Analysis on injury characteristics and treatment of the hospitalized patients attributable to 2008 Wenchuan earthquake in China: a report of 826 cases / 中华创伤杂志

ABSTRACT

Objective To analyze injury characteristics and treatment of hospitalized patients wounded in Wenehuan earthquake so as to provide references for medical rescue in disasters. Methods The study involved data of seismic patients from Trauma Database System Version 3.0 that collected clini-cal data of seismic patients admitted into West China Hospital of Sichuan University, Chengdu, and First and Second Hospitals of Deyang City. Trauma Database System Version 3.0 was developed by Research Institute for Traffic Medicine of PLA, Research Institute of Surgery, Daping Hospital, Third Military Medical University, Chongqing. A comparative analysis was done on patient distribution, injury severity and medical treatment. Results There were 826 qualified patients including 410 males and 416 females ( at age range of 1-102 years, mean 45.8 years). Of all, the patients at age of 31-60 years accounted for 50. 2%. The patients were mainly peasants (43.8%, 208/477), workers (15.7%, 75/477) and students (14.1%, 67/477). Blunt injury (53.2%), crush/bury injury (22.5%) and slip/fall injury were three main causes for injury. The patients for 92.1% were admitted into two hospitals of the City of Deyang within four days after earthquake, while 81.7% of patients were admitted into West China Hospital in Chengdu at days 3-9 after earthquake. Patients with bone injuries accounted for 75.3%. The patients had abbreviated injury score (AIS) for mainly 1-3 points, with incidence rate of se-vere multiple trauma ( ISS > 16 points) of 8.2%. Internal fixation was done in 120 patients ( 34. 1% ), debridement and suturing in 103 (29.3%), external fixation in 55 ( 15.6% ), extremity amputation in 22 (6.3%) and intracerebral surgery in 2 (0.6%). Conclusions The injuries are mainly induced by collapse of buildings during earthquake. Bone injuries are predominant injury type, with AIS of mainly 1-3 points and few severe multiple trauma. The results show that the patients receive late special treat-ment and slow evacuation, indieating necessity of strengthening capacity of early medical treatment and ef-fective evacuation during destructive natural disasters.