Damage control surgery for treatment of flail chest combined with multiple trauma / 中华创伤杂志

ABSTRACT

Objective To investigate clinical effect of damage control surgery (DCS) in treatment of patients with flail chest combined with severe multiple injuries.Methods A total of 187 cases of flail chest combined with severe multiple injuries treated by fixation of floating chest wall were enrolled and divided into three groups on the basis of different treatmentsDCS group (66 cases) underwent early suspension traction of ribs and delayed internal fixation of the ribs ; Group A (70 cases) underwent rib suspension traction alone; Group B (51 cases) underwent initial internal fixation of rib.Complications,mortality,and main parameters before and after operation in each group were analyzed and compared.Results Complications including pulmonary infection (32 cases),atelectasis (38 cases),and acute lung injury (ALI)/ARDS (39 cases) were found.Twenty-two cases died,including 13 deaths from ARDS,two from tension pneumothorax,one from massive hemoptysis,three from cardiac shock,two from craniocerebral injury,and one from liver trauma and thus the overall death rate occupied 11.8％.Oxygenation index (OI) had significant rise postoperatively both in the DCS group and Group A (P ＜ 0.01),but the change of OI was inappreciable in Group B.Mortality,complication rate,cases treated with mechanical ventilation,tracheotomy or fiberoptic bronchoscopy,and average length of ICU and hospital stay were the lowest in the DCS Group,followed by a relatively higher result in Group B and a much higher result in Group A (P ＜ 0.01).Conclusion DCS decreases mortality and complications dramatically when appolied to treat flail chest combined with severe multiple trauma.