Retrospective assessment of vascular injuries: 23 years of experience.

PURPOSE: To analyze the operation methods, injury etiologies and localizations, post-operative complications and the reasons for mortality in patients who were admitted for peripheral vascular injuries to our clinics.

METHODS

From January 1979 to February 2002, 410 patients were operated for peripheral vascular injuries. Three hundred and one of the patients were male (73.5%) and 109 of them were female (26.5%), and their ages ranged between 1-88 (mean 35.5 years).

RESULTS

The most common etiological reason was firearm injuries in 163 patients (39.8%). The most common injured artery was the brachial artery (83 patients, 22.5%) among a total of 369 patients whereas the most commonly injured vein was the common femoral vein (60 patients, 23.4%) in a total of 256 patients. Isolated venous injuries were encountered in 41 patients whereas isolated arterial injuries were detected in 154 patients (37.5%). Hospital admission duration of the patients after trauma was approximately 3 hours.

CONCLUSION

The extremity-salvage rate in the group was 92.3%. The hospital stay period of the patients was 21.8 days. The mortality rate was 2.6% (11 patients).