Trauma is the third most common cause of death in the West. In the US, approximately 90,000 deaths annually are traumatic in nature and over 75% of casualties from blunt trauma are due to chest injuries. Cardiac injuries from rib fractures following blunt trauma are extremely rare. We report the unusual case of a patient who fell from a height and presented with haemopericardium and haemothorax...

In trauma patients, TEG® and ROTEM® allow prediction of massive transfusion requirement and mortality, and creation of goal-directed, individualized coagulation algorithms that may improve patient outcome. This outcome benefit has been shown for cardiac surgery in prospective randomized trials. For trauma, only non-randomized studies have been performed. Nevertheless, TEG® and ROTEM® are highly...

Background Penetrating cardiac injury has the highest mortality and morbidity rates of all organ injury. The prehospital mortality rate for penetrating cardiac injury was 70 – 80%. Prehospital care including rapid transportation of patients to trauma center and agresive intervention has increased survival rate. The purpose of this study was to show our experience in treatment of patient with pe...

Cardiac trauma after blunt chest trauma is a rare complication of patients arriving alive to an emergency department. We here present the case of patient who had a partial rupture of the interventricular septum after having had a blunt chest trauma in a traffic accident. As there was no ventricular septal defect, conservative management was deemed appropriate. At 3-year follow-up, the patient w...

To relate angiographic injections to potential cardiac trauma, we verified a mathematic theory that allows quantitative definition of the kinetic energy content of contrast jets emanating from the exit holes of angiographic catheters. Cineangiographic recordings of a range of jets of known energy content were obtained in 18 cardiac canine experiments and energy content and dissipation were quan...

BACKGROUND Trauma characteristics and its management is influenced by socioeconomic context. Cardiac trauma constitutes a challenge for surgeons, and outcomes depend on multiple factors including initial care, characteristics of the wounds, and surgical management. METHODS This is a retrospective cross-sectional case series of patients with penetrating cardiac injuries (PCI) from January 1999...

Mizushima, Yasuaki, Ping Wang, Doraid Jarrar, William G. Cioffi, Kirby I. Bland, and Irshad H. Chaudry. Preinduction of heat shock proteins protects cardiac and hepatic functions following trauma and hemorrhage. Am. J. Physiol. Regulatory Integrative Comp. Physiol. 278: R352– R359, 2000.—Although studies have shown that induction of the heat shock proteins (HSPs), such as HSP-70, has various be...

BACKGROUND AND AIM Hip fractures are associated with a significant risk of morbidity and mortality in the elderly population. Current guidelines propose that these patients should be operated as early as possible. Preoperative cardiac investigations, especially echocardiography, have been considered to delay surgery with few changes in the patient management. The present study has been conducte...

STUDY OBJECTIVE Myocardial contusion may induce life-threatening complications, but its diagnosis is difficult. Circulating cardiac troponin T is considered a highly sensitive and specific marker of myocardial cell injury. We investigate the value of cardiac troponin T measurement in the diagnosis of myocardial contusion. DESIGN Prospective study. SETTING Level 1 trauma center. METHODS We...