Clinical characteristics and emergency treatment of severe chest trauma caused by various kinds of trauma

Objective To discuss clinical characteristics and emergency treatment of severe chest trauma.MethodsTwo hundred and thirty seven cases of severe chest trauma were reviewed retrospectively(AIS≥3). The causes of trauma,its clinical characteristics and rates of complications of 237 cases were compared.Results The most common cause is traffic trauma.It can cause severe brain and abdomal injury(P0.01);The penetrating chest trauma always occured with hemothorax with higher frequency of hemorrhagic shock(P0.01);Severe pulmonary contusion and flail chest were common in the crush trauma which had higher frequency of ARDS than traffic trauma(P0.01). The emergency operations were performed in 78 cases with the rate of 32.9% of severe chest trauma. Twenty nine cases died with a mortality of 12.2%.Conclusion The emergency treatment of severe chest trauma should be adopted according to the clinical characteristics of trauma caused by various injuries.