[Management of hepatic trauma: four years experience]

Abstract

Introduction: The liver is the second most damaged organ in abdominal trauma. The purpose of this article is to present the experience of our regional reference hospital and summarise the management of these types of injury over the last four years.

Patients and methods: An observational, descriptive and retrospective study was performed on patients with hepatic trauma admitted to our Department from January 2006 to March 2010. The clinical variables collected were: age, sex, aetiology, injury type, presence of haemodynamic stability and peritonism, type of treatment, and complications.

Results: The study included 17 patients, with a mean age of 25.3 years, and 12 of them were male. Ten patients received non-surgical treatment. Of those who received surgical treatment, packing was performed on 3, with one of them requiring a hemi-hepatectomy in a second operation. There were complications in 4 patients, 2 surgical and 2 non-surgical.

Discussion and conclusions: The most important criterion for the choice of non-surgical treatment is haemodynamic stability. The most recommended surgical technique for the rapid control of liver bleeding is compression packing, achieving stabilisation and to transfer the patient to a hospital with experience in hepatic surgery.