COMPUTED-TOMOGRAPHY DETECTION OF ACTIVE MESENTERIC - HEMORRHAGE FOLLOWING BLUNT ABDOMINAL-TRAUMA

Following blunt abdominal trauma, patients still may be actively bleed ing, despite seeming hemodynamically stable. By detecting extravasatio n of contrast-enhanced blood in the absence of any other evidence to s upport solid visceral injury as the source, computed tomography (CT) s canning was able to indicate ongoing hemorrhage in two patients, thoug ht most likely of mesenteric origin. This information influenced the d ecision for intervention, which in these two cases was laparotomy, whe re bleeding torn mesenteric vessels were confirmed.