Recently the thoracic injuries have been markedly increasing due to the vast increase of traffic accidnet, injustrial disaster, and incidental accident as well as the frequent use of the murderous weapons including gun or rifle. Because the thoracic injuries could involve the heart, lung, and great vessels, and would influence the lives; prompt diagnosis and adequate treatment are essential. Most of thoracic injuries can rye managed with the conservative treatment and simple surgical procedure such as closed thoracostomy, but certain cases require open thoracotomy to preserve lives and to return to their normal enviornment.
The authors have analysed the result of 53 cases of open thoracotomy after thoracic injuries mainly according to the patient´s chart review. The mean age was 33.4 years old and male to female ratio was about 5 : 1. Injury mechanisms that elicited thoracic trauma indicated for open thoracotomy were penetrating (47%) and non-penetrating(53%) injuries. The Most common type of the thoracic lesion was hemothorax with or without pneumothorax and diaphragm rupture was the second. 58% of thoracic injuries were accompanied by abdominal injuries and 47% by bone fractures. 34 patients were operated within 24 hours after injury and their average elapsed time was 13.6 hour. The remained pat-Tents were operated after 24 hours and their average elapsed time was 7.8 days. 71 cases of operative procedures containing some overlappings were performed : diaphragm repair(28), bleeding control (12 ), pulmonary and cardiac repair (4 cases). Postoperative complication rate was 32.1% and operative mortality rate was 9.4%(5 /53).
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