Blunt Abdominal Trauma: Evaluation and Indications for Laparotomy

computerized tomography; laparotomy indications Blunt trauma accounts for 80–90 % of the trauma seen in most civilian trauma centers. Significant ab-dominal trauma is present in 12–15 % of such pa-tients and usually occurs in association with multi-system injury. Although laparotomy is required in only 30–40 % of patients with blunt abdominal trau-ma, the importance of prompt evaluation and oper-ative therapy is underscored by the observation that the majority of preventable deaths after blunt trau-ma is due to either unrecognized abdominal injury, or under-appreciation of the severity of abdominal injury (1). This review will focus first on the curren-tly available modalities for evaluation of the abdo-men, and then discuss how these modalities may be