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• Liver Trauma: Management in the Emergency Setting and Medico-Legal Implications
  Angela Saviano, Veronica Ojetti, Christian Zanza, Francesco Franceschi, Yaroslava Longhitano, Ermelinda Martuscelli, Aniello Maiese, Gianpietro Volonnino, Giuseppe Bertozzi, Michela Ferrara, Raffaele La Russa
  Diagnostics.2022; 12(6): 1456.     CrossRef

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• What are the individual and joint impacts of key meteorological factors on the risk of unintentional injuries? A case-crossover study of over 147,800 cases from a sentinel-based surveillance system
  Xiao Lin, Tian Tian, Congxing Shi, Pengyu Wang, Shimin Chen, Tong Guo, Zhiqiang Li, Boheng Liang, Wangjian Zhang, Pengzhe Qin, Yuantao Hao
  Sustainable Cities and Society.2023; 91: 104413.     CrossRef

In South Korea, most patients who visit trauma centers with abdominal injuries have blunt trauma, and penetrating injuries are relatively rare. In extremely rare cases, some patients are admitted with a long object penetrating their abdomen, and these injuries are referred to as abdominal impalement injuries. Most cases of impalement injuries lead to fatal bleeding, and patients often die at the scene of the accident. However, patients who survive until reaching the hospital can have a good prognosis with optimal treatment. A 68-year-old female patient was admitted to the trauma center with a 4-cm-thick tree branch impaling her abdomen. The patient was transported by a medical helicopter and had stable vital signs at admission. The branch sticking out of the abdomen was quite long; thus, we carefully cut the branch with an electric saw to perform computed tomography (CT). CT revealed no signs of major blood vessel injury, but intestinal perforation was observed. During laparotomy, the tree branch was removed after confirming that there were no vascular injuries, and enterostomy was performed because of extensive intestinal injury. After treating other injuries, the patient was discharged without any complications except colostomy. Abdominal impalement injuries are treated using various approaches depending on the injury mechanism and injured region. However, the most important consideration is that the impaled object should not be removed during transportation and resuscitation. Instead, it should only be removed after checking for injuries to blood vessels during laparotomy in an environment where injury control is possible.

Renal injuries occur in more than 10% of patients who sustain blunt abdominal injuries. Non-operative management (NOM) is the established treatment strategy for lowgrade (I–III) renal injuries. However, despite some evidence that NOM can be successfully applied to high-grade (IV, V) renal injuries, it remains unclear whether NOM is appropriate in such cases. The authors report two cases of high-grade renal injuries that underwent NOM after embolization in a hybrid emergency room (ER) system with a 24/7 in-house interventional radiology (IR) team. A 29-year-old male visited Wonkwang University Hospital Regional Trauma Center complaining of right abdominal pain after being hit by a rope. Computed tomography (CT) was performed 16 minutes after arrival, and the CT scan indicated a grade V right renal injury. Arterial embolization was initiated within 31 minutes of presentation. A 56-year-old male was transferred to Wonkwang University Hospital Regional Trauma Center with a complaint of right flank pain. He had initially presented to a nearby hospital after falling from a 3-m height. Thanks to the key CT images sent from the previous hospital prior to the patient’s arrival, angiography was performed within 8 minutes of the patient’s arrival and arterial embolization was completed within 25 minutes. Both patients were treated successfully through NOM with angioembolization and preserved kidneys. Hematoma in the first patient and urinoma in the second patient resolved with percutaneous catheter drainage. The authors believe that the hybrid ER system with an in-house IR team could contribute to NOM and kidney preservation even in high-grade renal injuries.

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• Endovascular embolization of persistent liver injuries not responding to conservative management: a narrative review
  Simon Roh
  Journal of Trauma and Injury.2023; 36(3): 165.     CrossRef

Splenic injury is a common result of blunt trauma, and bleeding occurs mainly inside the splenic capsule and may leak into the peritoneal space. Herein, we report a case where active bleeding occurred in the splenic artery and only leaked into the extraperitoneal space. This is the first case of this phenomenon in a trauma patient in the English-language literature. Bleeding passed through the peritoneum, leaked into the anterior pararenal space, and continued along the extraperitoneal space to the prevesical space of the pelvis. Therefore, on the initial computed tomography (CT) scan, the bleeding appeared to be in the left paracolic gutter, so we suspected mesenteric bleeding. However, after the CT series was fully reconstructed, we accurately read the scans and confirmed splenic injury with active bleeding. If there had been a suspicion of bowel or mesenteric injury, surgery would have been required, but fortunately surgery could be avoided in this case. The patient was successfully treated with angioembolization.

Resuscitative endovascular balloon occlusion of the aorta (REBOA) is a novel technique to maintain proximal arterial pressure. It is important to locate the balloon catheter correctly in performing REBOA but it is inaccurate to check the catheter position by external measurement. Even if the position of the catheter is initially confirmed by X-ray, it is difficult to determine the location of the catheter that changes according to various situations. We performed REBOA under real-time fluoroscopy and could maintain the catheter in correct position under various situations.

The following key questions and recommendations are presented herein: when is airway intubation initiated in severe trauma? Airway intubation must be initiated in severe trauma patients with a GCS of 8 or lower (1B). Should rapid sequence intubation (RSI) be performed in trauma patients? RSI should be performed in trauma patients to secure the airway unless it is determined that securing the airway will be problematic (1B). What should be used as an induction drug for airway intubation? Ketamine or etomidate can be used as a sedative induction drug when RSI is being performed in a trauma patient (2B). If cervical spine damage is suspected, how is cervical protection achieved during airway intubation? When intubating a patient with a cervical spine injury, the extraction collar can be temporarily removed while the neck is fixed and protected manually (1C). What alternative method should be used if securing the airway fails more than three times? If three or more attempts to intubate the airway fail, other methods should be considered to secure the airway (1B). Should trauma patients maintain normal ventilation after intubation? It is recommended that trauma patients who have undergone airway intubation maintain normal ventilation rather than hyperventilation or hypoventilation (1C). When should resuscitative thoracotomy be considered for trauma patients? Resuscitative thoracotomy is recommended for trauma patients with penetrating injuries undergoing cardiac arrest or shock in the emergency room (1B).

Laparoscopy has been one of the most effective modalities in various surgical situations, although its use in trauma patients has some limitations. The benefits of laparoscopy include cost-effectiveness, shorter length of hospital stay, and less postoperative pain. This report describes diagnostic laparoscopy and laparoscopic diverting sigmoid loop colostomy in penetrating extraperitoneal rectal injury. A 41-year-old male presented with perineal pain following penetrating trauma caused by a tree limb. Computed tomography showed air density in the perirectal space and retroperitoneum. As his vital signs were stable, we performed diagnostic laparoscopy and confirmed no intraperitoneal perforation. Therefore, laparoscopic diverting sigmoid loop colostomy was performed. He was discharged without any complications despite underlying hepatitis C-related cirrhosis. Colostomy closure was performed 3 months later.

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• The floating rectum
  Sean Ng Kwet Chi Ng Ying Kin, William Jiang, Asiri Arachchi, Hanumant Chouhan
  ANZ Journal of Surgery.2022; 92(1-2): 264.     CrossRef