Penetrating thermal vascular injury in a child: a case report.

Penetrating vascular trauma in children is most commonly seen in wartime settings or more recently as a result of attempts at invasive imaging. Treatment of these patients can be more complicated than treatment of trauma in adults and must include maintenance of symmetric limb growth, compensatory growth of the vascular graft and its anastomoses, and the need for very long-term graft patency. This report describes the care of a 5-year-old child who was impaled by a hot metal pipe and sustained a penetrating thermal injury to the distal external iliac artery and vein. Issues such as conduit choice, extraanatomic reconstruction, anastomotic suture technique, and soft tissue coverage are reviewed in the report.