Abstract

From January 1987 through April 1991, 43 casualties underwent surgical treatment for the penetrating abdominal injuries by army weapons at Capital Armed Forces General Hospital. Clinical data on these patients were analyzed and the results were as follows: 1) Mean age of the patients was 22.0 years and all but one casualty were male. 2) The weapons involved were M-16 rifles, K-2 rifles, hand grenades, pistols, kremor, hand mine, and M-60 machine gun. 3) The mean interval of time between the injury and the initial management at our ER was 110 minutes. 4) The initial mean systolic blood pressure of overall patients was 97 mmHg. In survivors and in those who eventually succumbed, it was 105 and 80, respectively. 5) The initial mean hemoglobin levels for these three groups were 10.89 gm/dl, 11.42 gm/dl, and 9.8 gm/dl, respectively. 6) The mean total blood transfused up until the termination of operative procedure were 7.5, 5.8, and 15.7 units in these groups, respectively. 7) The mean number of injured organs per patient were 2.8, 2.6, and 4.1, respectively. The commonly injured organs were small bowel, colon, liver, and stomach in order of frequency. 8) Postoperative abdominal complication rate was 27.5%, the most common being wound infection.9) There were seven deaths with overall mortality rate of 16.3% They were attributed to shock, ARDS, and Spesis. 10) The factors affecting the mortality were initial systolic BP below 85 mmHg, initial Hb value of 9.0 gm/dl or lower,whole blood transfusion in escess of 7 units, the injured organs numbering more than 5, major vascular injury, and conplicating intraabdominal descess.