Minerva chirurgica
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Review Case Reports
[The ingestion of foreign bodies for the purpose of self-injury. The conservative treatment of 2 clinical cases].
Although not rare, the ingestion of foreign bodies becomes uncommon when it is done with intent to cause self-damage. When used for this purpose, foreign bodies usually take the form of liquid substances, such as caustic agents, detergents, poisons, etc. It is less rare in certain situations like psychiatric and prison settings. The author reports two cases of foreign bodies voluntarily swallowed by patients in prison.
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A series of 72 severely head injured patients are reported, 24 (33%) with surgical intracranial hematomas. All patients were intensively cared for under the same therapeutic regime; intracranial pressure (ICP) was monitored and treated if increased. The series mortality was 39%. ⋯ The different outcome among severe head injury series could be conceivably related to a different frequency of UI-ICP. Besides the severity of head injury and delay and mode of admission, we suggest that preadmission respiratory and cardiocirculatory and the quality of emergency medical system could strongly affect the incidence of uncontrollable increase of ICP in admitted patients and thus the mortality rate and favorable recovery of the series. The advanced preadmission emergency care service with intensive care after admission could significantly explain the better results often observed in severe head injury series.