Alcoholic Beverage and Traffic Accidents: Impact of the Drunk-Driving Law in Severity and Mortality of Victims

Abstract

Rationale: Duodenal injuries are rare and most common due to penetrating abdominal trauma, especially gunshot wounds, with greatest prevalence among young men. Achieving simpler and more effective surgical procedures also contributes to the reduction of mortality and morbidity rates.Objective: Review cases of penetrating and blunt duodenal trauma, the complexity of the injuries, incidence, management as well as morbidity and mortality. Materials and methods:At Grajaú General Hospital, between January 2010 and May 2014, a retrospective analysis of 1,039 patients' medical records who had undergone emergency exploratory laparotomies was done. From these cases, 298 were caused by blunt and penetrating abdominal traumas, and 11 suffered duodenal traumas.Results: It was observed that there was a predominance of young adults (mean age 26.48 years) and all patients were males (100%), of which one injury was from blunt abdominal trauma, three from stab wounds, and seven caused by firearm. Most of the duodenal injuries were classified as grade II injuries and most commonly involved the fourth portion of the duodenum. We emphasize the association with injuries to other organs, especially the liver and the small intestine. In the cases we analyzed, we highlight the importance of time between entry of service and surgery in all patients being less than 6 hours. The most common surgery performed to repair these injuries was duodenorrhaphy (90.9%). In this series, there were four deaths. Postoperative complications included duodenal fistulae with spontaneous resolution.Conclusion: Duodenal injuries are rare, and are most commonly due to penetrating abdominal trauma, especially gunshot wounds, with the greatest prevalence among young men. There is a need for early diagnosis and rapid surgical intervention, shortened and effective surgical procedures, due to the morbidity/mortality and high complexity of these injuries. This emphasizes the importance of early intervention in the short time before surgical procedure takes place.