| Summary: | Introduction: Acute abdominal injuries are most often caused by high-energy trauma and are either blunt, e.g. motor vehicle accidents, or penetrating, e.g. stab wounds. Upon arrival to the hospital, an unstable patient should undergo acute surgery. Worldwide, trauma is a leading cause of morbidity and mortality, especially in young people, where road traffic injuries and suicide are the two leading causes. This is a descriptive retrospective cohort study involving all patients who underwent an acute abdominal operation due to abdominal injury in a 21-year period with the aims of describing the incidence of abdominal injuries requiring surgery, the causes and nature of the injuries, use of diagnostic imaging and interventional radiology and patient outcomes. Materials and methods: Data from 109 patients was collected from medical records from Landspitali – The National University Hospital of Iceland by operational and diagnostic codes. 61 patients (56%) met the inclusion criteria. Main causes for exclusion were operations for reasons other than abdominal trauma, operations on children, or inaccuracies in medical coding. The 21-year research period was divided into two periods, 1997-2006 and 2007-2017. Descriptive analysis of the data was performed and periods compared using Chi-squared test, Fisher’s Exact test, or Student’s T-test as appropriate. Results: Mean age was 40 years, mostly males (82%) and Icelandic citizens (90%). Most operations were laparotomies (87%), other were done laparoscopically, with no significant difference between study periods. Injuries were categorised as blunt (54%) or penetrating (46%). The most common cause of injury was motor vehicle accidents (43%), then stab wounds (30%). Gunshot wounds (8%) and falls (5%) were less common. 20% of injuries were caused by self-harm. Differences in causes between study periods were statistically insignificant. The most commonly injured sites were the abdominal wall (48%), mesentery (36%) and spleen (36%). A majority of patients (79%) underwent a ...
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