Unwitnessed penetrating head injuries (PHIs) are often challenging. The inability to locate a foreign body should not exclude this diagnosis nor should it delay treatment. Attempts must be made to clarify the mechanism of injury, as this may allow for a better understanding of the patient's condition.

INTRODUCTION Computed tomography is commonly used to exclude occult injuries in patients with trauma, but imaging can reveal findings that are of uncertain etiology or clinical significance. We present a case of unsuspected pancreatic abnormality in a female patient with trauma who sustained an isolated blunt head injury. CASE PRESENTATION A 25-year-old female Caucasian patient sustained mass...

Preventable and unexpected deaths following injury were identified from among 1088 victims of major injuries arising in a defined population and area during a 12-month period. In hospital, 44 (16 per cent) deaths from blunt injury, one death from penetrating injury and one death from drowning were preventable. In patients sustaining blunt injuries, 22 per cent of non-head-injury deaths and 13 p...

A young girl developed an intracranial abscess and necrotizing cellulitis following penetrating injury from a lawn dart. Initial identification of a gram-positive rod growing aerobically from clinical specimens was as a Bacillus organism, but the observation that the isolate grew poorly in subcultures for susceptibility testing but quite well under standard anaerobic culture techniques led to t...

Vertebro-vertebral arteriovenous fistulae occur infrequently. We report on such a case with delayed presentation following penetrating neck injury. This was successfully treated via coil embolisation. A 40-year-old woman presented with a subjective tinnitus that was abolished by turning her head to the right. She had sustained penetrating neck trauma 6 months earlier. Doppler Ultrasound and mag...

OBJECTIVE Prehospital intravenous (IV) fluid administration is common in trauma patients, although little evidence supports this practice. We hypothesized that trauma patients who received prehospital IV fluids have higher mortality than trauma patients who did not receive IV fluids in the prehospital setting. METHODS We performed a retrospective cohort study of patients from the National Tra...

PURPOSE To determine the frequency, causes, risk factors and outcome following early posttraumatic seizure. METHODS A retrospective analysis of age, sex, mechanism of injury, type and onset of unprovoked seizure occurring within one week of injury, admission coma score, and Glasgow outcome score in patients with nonpenetrating head injury. RESULTS Eighty six (10.2%) of 845 head injuredpatie...