São Paulo medical journal = Revista paulista de medicina
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Trauma to arteries of the forearm corresponds to 20% of total arterial trauma. The authors analyzed 24 patients with non iatrogenic trauma of the forearm arteries, cared for from January 1987 to December 1990. All patients were male, trauma by penetrating instrument was the most frequent, with 21 cases (87.5%), absence of pulses was the most frequent clinical manifestation (62.5%), fifteen patients did not present ischemic manifestations (54.2%) and half of the patients did not exhibit neurological symptoms. ⋯ All patients with concurrent injury to the ulnar and radial arteries (13) were submitted to arterial restoration. The 11 patients with injury to a sole artery of the forearm were managed as follows: ligature of the interosseous artery in one case, ligature of the radial artery in four cases, raphe of the radial artery in one case, ligature of the ulnar artery in three cases, restoration of the ulnar artery using a segment of the v. saphena in the two cases in which the Allen test had been positive. One patient died in the immediate postoperative period as a result of multiple organ failure due to polytraumatism.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)