Abstract
Background
Tracheobronchial injury is a rare and serious outcome of thoracic trauma. The aim of this study was to describe our experience in the management of tracheobronchial injuries.
Methods
We reviewed the presentation, line of management, and results of all 23 patients (17 males and 6 females) with a mean age of 27.87 years, who presented with traumatic tracheobronchial injuries and were admitted to the level 3 trauma center of our university emergency hospital over an eight-year period.
Results
Blunt trauma was the leading cause (73.9%) of injury. Bronchoscopy was routinely performed. A right thoracotomy was carried out in 73.9% of patients. The right main bronchus was the most common site of injury (30.4%), followed by the trachea in 26.1%. Pulmonary resection was undertaken in 5 cases. Three operative mortalities were recorded.
Conclusion
Tracheobronchial injuries can be treated conservatively or ideally by surgical repair which is the core line of treatment. Surgery has excellent outcomes depending on skillful use of bronchoscopy and the surgeon’s experience of the surgical approach and technique.
Get full access to this article
View all access options for this article.
References
Supplementary Material
Please find the following supplemental material available below.
For Open Access articles published under a Creative Commons License, all supplemental material carries the same license as the article it is associated with.
For non-Open Access articles published, all supplemental material carries a non-exclusive license, and permission requests for re-use of supplemental material or any part of supplemental material shall be sent directly to the copyright owner as specified in the copyright notice associated with the article.
