SEVERE AND FATAL CHILDHOOD TRAUMA

We wanted to study epidemiology and the outcome of severe childhood tr auma. A retrospective study tons carried out of 347 severely injured c hildren under 16 years of age, who required intensive care oi died dur ing a 10-year period in southern Finland. Of the severely injured chil dren, 65.4 per cent were male. Blunt injuries were the most common (83 .0 per cent) followed by penetrating injuries (4.9 per cent), burns (4 .6 per cent) and others (7.5 per cent). Of the patients with blunt or penetrating trauma, 85.6 per cent had head injury alone, or combined w ith other injuries. The majority of all injuries (58.2 per cent) and d eaths (59.3 per cent) in children were caused by road traffic accident s. Of this patient population, 64 died at the scene, 54 died ii? hospi tal and 229 survived. Most of the deceased trauma patients (77.1 per c ent) died within the first 6 h following the incident and ail the deat hs occurred within 9 days. The annual incidence of severe trauma was 1 4.1 per 100000 children, and the annual mortality was 4.8 pet 100000. All the trauma deaths occurred immediately or within a few days of the accident. Late trauma deaths due to sepsis ol multiple organ failure were not seen in children. (C) 1998 Published by Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.