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Epidemiology of firearm injuries in a Scandinavian trauma center

BACKGROUND: There is a concern that civilian gunshot injuries in Europe are increasing but there is a lack of contemporary studies. The purpose of this study was to investigate the current epidemiology and outcome of firearm injuries. METHODS: Retrospective cohort study of all patients (n = 235) tre...

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Autores principales: Bäckman, Pernilla Brandt, Riddez, Louis, Adamsson, Lennart, Wahlgren, Carl-Magnus
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Springer Berlin Heidelberg 2018
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7278766/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/30392124
http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s00068-018-1045-1
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author Bäckman, Pernilla Brandt
Riddez, Louis
Adamsson, Lennart
Wahlgren, Carl-Magnus
author_facet Bäckman, Pernilla Brandt
Riddez, Louis
Adamsson, Lennart
Wahlgren, Carl-Magnus
author_sort Bäckman, Pernilla Brandt
collection PubMed
description BACKGROUND: There is a concern that civilian gunshot injuries in Europe are increasing but there is a lack of contemporary studies. The purpose of this study was to investigate the current epidemiology and outcome of firearm injuries. METHODS: Retrospective cohort study of all patients (n = 235) treated for firearm injuries admitted to a Scandinavian trauma center between 2005 and 2016. Local and national trauma registries were used for data collection. RESULTS: Mean age was 31.3 years (SD ± 12.9; range 16–88 years); 93.6% males; mean ISS was 14.3 (SD ± 15.9); 31.9% (75/235) had ISS > 15. There was a significant increase in penetrating trauma (P < 0.001) and firearm injuries (P < 0.001) over the years. The most common anatomical location of firearm injury was the lower extremity, (n = 138/235; 38%), followed by the abdomen (n = 69;19%), upper extremity (n = 53;15%), chest (n = 50; 14%), and head and neck (n = 50; 14%). Ninety patients (38.3%) had more than one anatomic injury location. There were in total 360 firearm injuries and 168 major surgical procedures were performed. 53% (n = 125) of patients underwent at least one surgical procedure. The most common procedures were fracture surgery 42% (n = 70/168), followed by laparotomy 30%% (n = 51), chest tube 17% (n = 29), and thoracotomy 11% (n = 18). Forty-one patients (17%) had at least one major vascular injury (n = 54). The most common vascular injury was lower extremity vessel injuries, 26/54 (48%), followed by vessels in chest and abdomen. There was a significant increase in vascular injuries during the study period (P < 0.006). The 30-day mortality was 12.8% (n = 30); 24 patients died within 24 h mainly due to injuries to the chest and the head and neck region. CONCLUSIONS: Firearm injuries cause significant morbidity and mortality and are an important medical and public health problem. In a Scandinavian trauma center there has been an increase of firearm injuries in recent years. The lower extremities followed by the abdomen are the dominating injured regions and there has been an increase in associated vascular injuries.
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spelling pubmed-72787662020-06-09 Epidemiology of firearm injuries in a Scandinavian trauma center Bäckman, Pernilla Brandt Riddez, Louis Adamsson, Lennart Wahlgren, Carl-Magnus Eur J Trauma Emerg Surg Original Article BACKGROUND: There is a concern that civilian gunshot injuries in Europe are increasing but there is a lack of contemporary studies. The purpose of this study was to investigate the current epidemiology and outcome of firearm injuries. METHODS: Retrospective cohort study of all patients (n = 235) treated for firearm injuries admitted to a Scandinavian trauma center between 2005 and 2016. Local and national trauma registries were used for data collection. RESULTS: Mean age was 31.3 years (SD ± 12.9; range 16–88 years); 93.6% males; mean ISS was 14.3 (SD ± 15.9); 31.9% (75/235) had ISS > 15. There was a significant increase in penetrating trauma (P < 0.001) and firearm injuries (P < 0.001) over the years. The most common anatomical location of firearm injury was the lower extremity, (n = 138/235; 38%), followed by the abdomen (n = 69;19%), upper extremity (n = 53;15%), chest (n = 50; 14%), and head and neck (n = 50; 14%). Ninety patients (38.3%) had more than one anatomic injury location. There were in total 360 firearm injuries and 168 major surgical procedures were performed. 53% (n = 125) of patients underwent at least one surgical procedure. The most common procedures were fracture surgery 42% (n = 70/168), followed by laparotomy 30%% (n = 51), chest tube 17% (n = 29), and thoracotomy 11% (n = 18). Forty-one patients (17%) had at least one major vascular injury (n = 54). The most common vascular injury was lower extremity vessel injuries, 26/54 (48%), followed by vessels in chest and abdomen. There was a significant increase in vascular injuries during the study period (P < 0.006). The 30-day mortality was 12.8% (n = 30); 24 patients died within 24 h mainly due to injuries to the chest and the head and neck region. CONCLUSIONS: Firearm injuries cause significant morbidity and mortality and are an important medical and public health problem. In a Scandinavian trauma center there has been an increase of firearm injuries in recent years. The lower extremities followed by the abdomen are the dominating injured regions and there has been an increase in associated vascular injuries. Springer Berlin Heidelberg 2018-11-03 2020 /pmc/articles/PMC7278766/ /pubmed/30392124 http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s00068-018-1045-1 Text en © The Author(s) 2018 Open AccessThis article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made.
spellingShingle Original Article
Bäckman, Pernilla Brandt
Riddez, Louis
Adamsson, Lennart
Wahlgren, Carl-Magnus
Epidemiology of firearm injuries in a Scandinavian trauma center
title Epidemiology of firearm injuries in a Scandinavian trauma center
title_full Epidemiology of firearm injuries in a Scandinavian trauma center
title_fullStr Epidemiology of firearm injuries in a Scandinavian trauma center
title_full_unstemmed Epidemiology of firearm injuries in a Scandinavian trauma center
title_short Epidemiology of firearm injuries in a Scandinavian trauma center
title_sort epidemiology of firearm injuries in a scandinavian trauma center
topic Original Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7278766/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/30392124
http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s00068-018-1045-1
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