Injury
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We wanted to study epidemiology and the outcome of severe childhood trauma. A retrospective study was carried out of 347 severely injured children under 16 years of age, who required intensive care or died during a 10-year period in southern Finland. Of the severely injured children, 65.4 per cent were male. ⋯ The annual incidence of severe trauma was 14.1 per 100,000 children, and the annual mortality was 4.8 per 100,000. All the trauma deaths occurred immediately or within a few days of the accident. Late trauma deaths due to sepsis or multiple organ failure were not seen in children.
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Twenty six children with severely displaced supracondylar fractures were treated with closed reduction and vertical osseous traction with an olecranon screw. Four children required a second operation in the form of open reduction and K-wire fixation for failure to achieve a satisfactory reduction. After a mean follow up of 48 weeks, 20 children (91 per cent) had an excellent result with no significant loss of movement. ⋯ All four children who had a second operation had an excellent result. The average hospitalisation time was 19 days. The method of olecranon screw traction is technically easy to perform and carries few risks of complications.