Genitourinary Injuries Among Female U.S. Service Members During Operation Iraqi Freedom and Operation Enduring Freedom: Findings from the Trauma Outcomes and Urogenital Health (TOUGH) Project.

Introduction: Until recently, female U.S. service members (SMs) have not been permitted to serve in direct combat roles. However, during Operation Iraqi Freedom (OIF) and Operation Enduring Freedom (OEF), a large number of female SMs have been wounded while serving in combat support roles. This included an unprecedented number of women with genitourinary (GU) injuries. No previous studies have reported either the incidence or clinical picture of these injuries. The objective of this study is to describe the epidemiology of GU injuries among female U.S. SMs during OIF/OEF and understand the potential for increased female GU injuries in future conflicts and the long-term sequelae from these injury patterns. Materials and Methods: The Department of Defense Trauma Registry was reviewed to identify all U.S. SMs diagnosed with GU injury from 2001 to 2013. The Department of Defense Trauma Registry includes data for wounded SMs treated at any U.S. combat support hospital, the in-theater equivalent of a civilian trauma center. Female SMs with ICD-9-CM diagnosis codes and/or Abbreviated Injury Scale codes for GU injury were included. Data on all females with GU injury were reviewed, including battle injury (BI) and non-BI. Basic demographic and injury characteristics were reported. Results: Among the 1,463 U.S. SMs diagnosed with GU injury while deployed to OIF/OEF, 20 (1.4%) were female (median age: 25 yr; interquartile range 21-27 yr). Of these, nine were BI (45%) and 11 were non-BI (55%). The distribution of injury location was as follows: renal injuries (n = 12), vulvar injuries (n = 3), vaginal injuries (n = 3), perineal injury (n = 1), and bladder injury (n = 1). Median Injury Severity Score was in the severe range of 21 (interquartile range 6-32), and four women (20%) died of their wounds. Important associated injuries included colorectal (n = 5) and lower extremity amputation(s) (n = 2). The most common mechanism of injury among the nine women with GU BI was improvised explosive device blast (n = 6), followed by other explosions (n = 2) and gunshot wound (n = 1). Mechanisms of GU non-BI varied, including gunshot wound (n = 2), fall (n = 2), fire/flame (n = 1), knife wound (n = 1), unintentional machine injury (n = 1), motor vehicle accident (n = 1), sports injury (n = 1), fight (n = 1), and pedestrian injury (n = 1). Conclusion: Female GU injuries comprise a small portion of all GU injuries sustained during OIF/OEF with the most predominant being renal injury. Now that the ground combat exclusion policy has been lifted, these data can be used as a model for the expected injury patterns in future female combatants. Long-term applications for these data include research and development for personal protective equipment and development of a multidisciplinary approach to long-term comprehensive care following GU trauma.

Burns to the genitalia, perineum, and buttocks increase the risk of death among U.S. service members sustaining combat-related burns in Iraq and Afghanistan.

PURPOSE: Among service members injured in Iraq and Afghanistan, to determine the risk of mortality associated with combat-related burns to the genitalia, perineum, and buttocks. MATERIALS AND METHODS: The prospectively maintained burn registry from the United States Army Institute of Surgical Research was retrospectively reviewed to identify all service members with combat-related burns sustained in Iraq and Afghanistan from March 2003 to October 2013. The two primary risk factors of interest were (1) any burn to the genitals, perineum, and/or buttocks (PB) and (2) burns involving the entire perineal, genital, and buttock region (complete PB). Cox proportional hazard models were used to estimate the risk of mortality for both primary risk factors, and adjusted for severe non-burn-related trauma, percent of burn over total body surface area (TBSA), inhalational injury, time to urinary tract infection, and time to bacteremia. A post-hoc analysis was performed to explore the potential effect modification of TBSA burned on the relationship between PB and mortality. RESULTS: Among the 902 U.S. service members with combat-related burns sustained during the study period, 226 (25.0%) had involvement of the genitalia, perineum, and/or buttocks. Complete PB was associated with a crude risk of mortality (HR: 5.3; 2.9-9.7), but not an adjusted risk (HR=1.8; 0.8-4.0). However, TBSA burned was identified as a potential negative effect modifier. Among patients with burns <60% TBSA, sustaining a complete PB conferred an adjusted risk of death (HR=2.7; 1.1-6.8). Further, patients with a perineal burn had a five-fold increased incidence of bacteremia. In adjusted models, each event of bacteremia increased the risk of mortality by 92% (HR 1.92; 1.39-2.65). Perineal burns were associated with a two-fold increased incidence of severe non-burn related trauma that also doubled mortality risk in adjusted models (HR 2.29; 1.23-4.27). CONCLUSIONS: Among those with relatively survivable combat-related burns (<60% TBSA), genital/perineal/buttock involvement increases the risk of death. Bacteremia may account for part of this increased risk, but does not fully explain the independent risk associated with perineal burns.

Epidemiology of Genitourinary Injuries among Male U.S. Service Members Deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan: Early Findings from the Trauma Outcomes and Urogenital Health (TOUGH) Project.

PURPOSE: In this study we report the number, nature and severity of genitourinary injuries among male U.S. service members deployed to Operations Iraqi Freedom and Enduring Freedom. MATERIALS AND METHODS: This retrospective cross-sectional study of the Department of Defense Trauma Registry used ICD-9-CM codes to identify service members with genitourinary injuries, and used Abbreviated Injury Scale codes to determine injury severity, genitourinary organs injured and comorbid injuries. RESULTS: From October 2001 to August 2013, 1,367 male U.S. service members sustained 1 or more genitourinary injuries. The majority of injuries involved the external genitalia (1,000, 73.2%), including the scrotum (760, 55.6%), testes (451, 33.0%), penis (423, 31%) and/or urethra (125, 9.1%). Overall more than a third of service members with genitourinary injury sustained at least 1 severe genitourinary injury (502, 36.7%). Loss of 1 or both testes was documented in 146 men, including 129 (9.4%) unilateral orchiectomies and 17 (1.2%) bilateral orchiectomies. Common comorbid injuries included traumatic brain injury (549, 40.2%), pelvic fracture (341, 25.0%), colorectal injury (297, 21.7%) and lower extremity amputations (387, 28.7%). CONCLUSIONS: An unprecedented number of U.S. service members sustained genitourinary injury while deployed to Operation Iraqi Freedom/Operation Enduring Freedom. Further study is needed to describe the long-term impact of genitourinary injury and determine the potential need for novel treatments to improve sexual, urinary and/or reproductive function among service members with severe genital injury.

Genitourinary injuries and extremity amputation in Operations Enduring Freedom and Iraqi Freedom: Early findings from the Trauma Outcomes and Urogenital Health (TOUGH) project.

BACKGROUND: In Operation Enduring Freedom and Operation Iraqi Freedom (OEF/OIF), genitourinary (GU) wounds have occurred in unprecedented numbers. Severe concomitant injuries, including extremity amputations, are common. The epidemiology of GU injury and extremity amputation in OEF/OIF has not been described. MATERIALS AND METHODS: The Department of Defense Trauma Registry was queried from October 2001 through August 2013 to identify all surviving US male service members with GU injuries sustained in OEF/OIF. Genitourinary injury was defined as sustaining one or more injuries to any organ or structure within the genitourinary and/or reproductive system(s) based on International Classification of Diseases, Ninth Revision, Clinical Modification diagnosis codes. Injury severity was quantified based on Abbreviated Injury Scale scores and overall Injury Severity Scores. The incidence, nature, and severity of GU injuries and extremity amputations are described. RESULTS: Of the 1,367 service members with GU injury included in this analysis, 433 (31.7%) had one or more extremity amputations. Most GU injuries were to the external genitalia [scrotum (55.6%), testes (33.0%), penis (31.0%), and urethra (9.1%)] vs. the kidneys (21.1%). Those with amputation(s) had greater GU injury severity (Abbreviated Injury Scale score ≥ 3) than those without amputations (50.1% vs. 30.5%, respectively; p < 0.0001). Approximately 3.4% of male service members with GU injury had an upper extremity amputation only, 8.9% had both lower and upper extremity amputation(s), and 19.4% had lower extremity amputation(s) only. Of the 387 patients with GU injury and lower extremity amputations, 87 (22.5%) had amputations below the knee and 300 (77.5%) had amputation(s) at/above the knee. CONCLUSION: In OEF/OIF, concomitant GU injury and extremity amputation are common and have serious implications for health and quality of life. This wounding pattern presents new challenges to the military medical and research and development communities to prevent, mitigate, and treat these battlefield injuries. LEVEL OF EVIDENCE: Epidemiologic/prognostic study, level III.

Self-reported and accelerometer-derived physical activity levels and coronary artery calcification progression in older women: results from the Healthy Women Study.

OBJECTIVE: Despite the well-supported biological link between physical activity (PA) and atherosclerosis, most previous studies have reported a null association between PA and coronary artery calcification (CAC). The aim of this study was to examine the relationship between PA and CAC progression in 148 Healthy Women Study (HWS) participants over 28 years of observation. METHODS: The HWS was designed to examine cardiovascular risk factor changes from premenopause to postmenopause. Based on CAC scores collected on two follow-up visits (electron beam tomography [EBT] 1 and EBT4) scheduled 12 years apart, participants were classified into one of three groups: (1) no-detectable CAC group (n = 37; 0 CAC on both visits); (2) incident CAC group (n = 46; 0 CAC on the first visit and >0 CAC on the last visit); or (3) prevalent CAC group (n = 65; >0 CAC on both visits). PA data were collected regularly throughout the study using self-report questionnaires and accelerometers on EBT4. RESULTS: The percentage of HWS participants with no detectable CAC decreased from 56.1% on EBT1 to 25.0% on EBT4. Times spent per day in accumulated moderate- to vigorous-intensity PA (MVPA) and bouts of MVPA were each significantly higher in the no-detectable CAC group when compared with the prevalent CAC group (both P ≤ 0.01). After covariate adjustment, these differences remained statistically significant (both P < 0.05). Although self-reported summary estimates collected throughout the study were significantly associated with accelerometer data on EBT4, there were no significant differences in self-reported PA levels by CAC group after covariate adjustment. CONCLUSIONS: Study findings suggest that low levels of accelerometer-derived MVPA may be indicative of subclinical disease in older women.