-
The American surgeon · Apr 1987
Penetrating trauma to the back and flank. A reassessment of mandatory celiotomy.
- J Vanderzee, P Christenberry, and G J Jurkovich.
- Am Surg. 1987 Apr 1; 53 (4): 220-2.
AbstractThe optimum management of penetrating wounds to the back and flank remains controversial. Since 1980 our institution has followed a policy of mandatory celiotomy for back and flank wounds with evidence of fascial penetration. Following this policy, 34 patients underwent celiotomy for back (8), flank (22), or combined (4) area penetrating injuries. Four patients sustained shotgun blasts, eight sustained handgun or rifle injuries, and 22 patients were stabbed. All shotgun blasts caused multiple intra-abdominal injuries and five (63%) of the eight gunshot victims had significant intra-abdominal injuries. Only one (5%) of the 22 stab victims had significant intra-abdominal injury. Four (12%) patients died, three of shotgun injuries. One patient had a small bowel obstruction 1 month after a noncontributory abdominal examination. Based on this review, the authors recommend selective management of stab wounds to the back and flank. Gunshot wounds continue to warrant mandatory exploration.
Notes
Knowledge, pearl, summary or comment to share?You can also include formatting, links, images and footnotes in your notes
- Simple formatting can be added to notes, such as
*italics*,_underline_or**bold**. - Superscript can be denoted by
<sup>text</sup>and subscript<sub>text</sub>. - Numbered or bulleted lists can be created using either numbered lines
1. 2. 3., hyphens-or asterisks*. - Links can be included with:
[my link to pubmed](http://pubmed.com) - Images can be included with:
 - For footnotes use
[^1](This is a footnote.)inline. - Or use an inline reference
[^1]to refer to a longer footnote elseweher in the document[^1]: This is a long footnote..