PURPOSE: As traffic accidents and invasive vascular procedures are increasing these days so are vascular trauma, either blunt or penetrating. So we investigated the changes of clinical status of vascular trauma for the last 10 years. METHOD: We retrospectively reviewed the medical records of 121 patients who had admitted and operated at Korea University Hospital due to traumatic arterial injuries from 1990 to 1999. We divided those patients by period into two groups; Era 1 (1990~1994) and Era 2 (1995~1999). The former group included 51 patients, the latter 70. Age distribution, causes of injury, location, degrees of injury, amputation rate, mortality rate, and operation methods between these two groups were compared. RESULT: The most common cause of arterial injury was blunt trauma by traffic accident in Era 1, injury by broken glasses in Era 2. Iatrogenic injury cases increased (from 3.9% in Era 1 to 10% in Era 2), and so did industrial injuries. Two groups also show similar distribution of degrees and location of injuries. Amputation rate in cases of vascular trauma of lower extremities correlates with combined fracture in both group (P<0.05). Amputation rate was 35.5% in Era 1, and 23.5% in Era 2. The mortality rate was 15.7% in Era 1 and 12.9% in Era 2 (p>0.05). Each group presented statistically significant correlation between location of injury and mortality (P<0.05). Abdominal injury was related to high mortality rate (63.2%). CONCLUSION: The latter period (Era 2) showed increased iatrogenic injury rate compared to the former. Amputation rate increased when combined with fracture in both groups, but mortality rate didn't significantly change between these two groups.
Abdominal Injuries ; Accidents, Traffic ; Age Distribution ; Amputation ; Eyeglasses ; Glass ; Humans ; Korea ; Lower Extremity ; Medical Records ; Mortality ; Retrospective Studies