Bomb blast injuries: Tertiary care hospital in-patient experience over the last 20 years.

OBJECTIVE To examine the distribution and nature of limb injuries in young bomb blast victimsand their management in a tertiary healthcare setting. METHODS The retrospective study was conducted at the Aga Khan University Hospital, Karachi and data was searched using the University Medical Record Database with International Classification of Diseases-Ninth Revision-Clinical Modification codes for injuries and terrorism between 1990 and 2012. Data regarding injuries, including admission time, hospital stay duration, interventions and mortality, was collected and classified as per the New Injury Severity Score. RESULTS There were 22 patients in the study; 19(86.3%) males and 3(13.7%) females. The mean age of the sample was 13.1±4.1 years. Median length of hospital stay was 9 days (range: 2-42 days). Sixteen (72.7%) patients required operative intervention. Patients rarely had accompanying injuries with limb injuries. Four (18%) patients needed open reduction and internal fixation. Two (9%) patients needed open reduction and external fixation. One (4.5%) patient required a limb amputation. One (4.5%) patient required ileal resection with ileoileal anastomosis due to shrapnel perforations. There was no mortality. CONCLUSIONS The young age group was not severely affected by limb trauma. Injuries sustained were infrequently accompanied by severe/critical injury severity scores.