TITLE:
Early Diagnosis and Treatment of Traumatic Diaphragmatic Injuries
AUTHORS:
Feyzi Kurt, Musa Abeş, Erdoğan Dadaş, Bülent Petik, Mehmet Şirik
KEYWORDS:
Trauma; Diaphragmatic Injury; Early Diagnosis
JOURNAL NAME:
Surgical Science,
Vol.5 No.2,
February
18,
2014
ABSTRACT:
Introduction: Early diagnosis and treatment
of injuries of the diaphragm are important both because of high incidence of
concomitant injuries and since they may lead to life-threatening intestinal and
gastric strangulation in the late term. Herein, cases with diaphragmatic injury
that have been diagnosed and operated in the early period after injury or
during surgery were presented. Methods: Data of 14 cases, which
have been diagnosed with diaphragmatic injury after trauma or during surgical
procedure that was performed because of concomitant abdominal or intra-thoracic
injury between January 2008 and April 2013, were retrospectively reviewed. Results: Of the traumatic diaphragmatic injuries, 10 (71.4%)
have occurred due to penetrating trauma, whereas 4 (28.5%) have occurred due to
blunt trauma. Diagnosis was made using I.V. contrast-enhanced whole abdominal
and thoracic tomography in all 3 pediatric cases (21.4%) and during surgery in
the others (78.5%). Conclusion: All of the diaphragmatic
injuries have been accompanied by intra-abdominal or intra-thoracic organ
injury that requires surgery. In these cases, the diagnosis was made on
suspicion of diaphragmatic injury in the course of surgical procedure performed
for concomitant organ injury. Computed tomography was diagnostic for diaphragmatic
injuries in the pediatric cases.