Surgery

E-mail: r.nirula@hsc.utah.edu
Address: RM 3B148 SOM
Phone: 587-9367

Western Trauma Association open abdomen study

The damage control approach to trauma surgery has been utilized for more then a decade and has been increasingly utilized in emergency general and vascular surgery  These patients require an abbreviated laparotomy to correct only those most life-threatening injuries followed by rapid and aggressive resuscitation in the intensive care unit so that they may return to theoperating room for subsequent repair of other potentially life threatening injuries and restoration of normal anatomy.  This approach requires leaving the abdomen open after the initial surgery until resuscitation is complete, however as many as 25% of patients can not have their abdomens subsequently closed due to fascial retraction and significant edema from a prolonged inflammatory response.  These patients suffer significant morbidity from the subsequent hernia but also have a high rate of infectious morbidity, fistula formation and resource utilization.  The Western Trauma Association has developed a data collection sheet to retrospectively acquire data regarding these patients and determine the associated conditions which will affect the outcome of these patients in terms of their complications and resource utilization. . 

12/2007