A clinical evaluation was done on 62 chest injury patients associated with hemothorax, which were
treated in the Department of Thoracic Surgery, Chonnam University Hospittal for the period of 6 years
and 7 months from January 1965 to August 1971.
The incidence of male to female was 14.5 : 1 and the age group of 20∼29 years old occupied
46.8% of the total.
The penetrating injuries were 44 cases and non-penetrating injuries were 18 cases(the ratio is 2.3:1).
The most frequent wounding agent was the knife (37 cases, 59.7%) and the next frequent cause of
hemothorax ws the traffic accidents (9 cases, 14.5%), which were highest incidence among non
penetrating injuries.
There were 41 injuries on the left side of the chest, comparing with 19 injuries on the right side.
Two patients had bilateral injuries.
Fourty seven injuries of a total of 62 cases were limited to the chest organs and the other 15 cases
were associated with injury of the abdominal organs and extremities or central nerve system.
Among 25 patients received single thoracentesis or tube drainage for hemothorax, an elimination
of hemothorax obtained only 15 cases and the other 10 cases required thoracotomy.
The 15 patients received the conservative treatments were mainly non-penetrating injuries. In this
group, 5 cases of lung atelectasis, 3 cases of wet ling syndrome, 2 cases of pneumonia and 3 cases of
chest deformity due to inactive atrophy of the chest wall occurred.
The 48 patients who received thoracotomy or thoraco-abdominal major operation, were divided into
39 cases of penetrating injuries and 8 cases of non-penetrating injuries. In this group, no complication
developed, but one cases(1.6%) who had multiple stab wounds in both chest and abdomen expired due
to postoperative renal insufficiency and cardiac failure.
|