Abdominal Vascular Injuries Due to Missile Wounds

Objective: Although abdominal vascular injuries due to missile bullets are less common compared to other injuries, they are of great importance because of the high mortality rate. There are many factors affecting the mortality rate such as; transportation time, type of injury, visceral organ damages, amount of blood loss and surgical experience of the medical and surgical team. The aim of this study is to assess the mortality rate of abdominal vascular injury caused by the bullets of rifles when visceral organs injury is associated with vascular injury. Methods: Between 1993-2008, registries in surgery department of the hospitals affiliated to Başkent University were scanned and 27 abdominal vascular injuries of a total of 212 abdominal wound cases were detected. The mean age was 24±12 years (22 men and 5 women). Ages ranged from 12 to 58 years. The cause of injury was a mine explosion and firearm in one patient, and firearms in the others. All cases had vascular injuries. 16 cases had major venous injuries, 6 had major arterial injuries and the remaining 5 cases have major arterial and venous injuries. Results: Fifty-four abdominal organ injuries were determined. Twenty-seven of these 54 patients had abdominal vascular injuries. Only one patient’s systolic blood pressure was higher than 50 mmHg in the preoperative period. The remaining patients had lower systolic blood pressures. In addition, the blood pressure of ten patients could not be determined during admission to the emergency department. Major venous injuries had the worst preoperative hemodynamics. Twenty-three of 54 patients had liver injury (42.59%), stomach injury in 14 patients (25.92%), right kidney injury in 7 patients (12.96), left kidney injury in 5 patients (9.25%) and multiple organ injuries in 2 patients (3.7%). Eight patients underwent vascular ligation