penetrating abdominal injuries in an emerging semi-urban teaching hospital

Objective: there has been a worldwide rise in the prevalence of penetrating abdominal injury (pai), and there are both inter-country and intra-country variations in frequencies. this study evaluates the mechanisms and pattern of penetrating abdominal injuries and the treatment outcome in our center. methods: this descriptive study of adult patients managed for pai was conducted at the ekiti state university teaching hospital (eksuth), ado-ekiti from january 2015 to december 2018. data were prospectively collected and analyzed by using descriptive statistics from statistical package for social sciences (spss) version 20.0. results: there were 96 patients managed for abdominal injuries during the study period. forty-six (47.9%) of them had pai, while 50 (52.1%) others sustained blunt trauma. patients ages ranged from 17-72 years (mean = 34.2±10.8 years; median = 34 years). majority, 42 (91.3%), were males, while 4 (8.7%) were females (m: f=11:1). the most afflicted age group was in the 4th decade. majority of the injuries were due to gunshot (60.9%) followed by stab (26.1%), unsafe abortion (6.5%), road traffic injury (4.3%) and fall (2.2%). gastrointestinal injuries were the most common with small bowel perforations predominating. solid organ injuries were only seen in 3 (7.9%) patients. eight (17.4%) had associated extra-abdominal injuries. thirty-eight (82.6%) patients required exploratory laparotomy, while 8 (17.4%) were managed non-operatively. the negative laparotomy rate was 2.6%. seven (15.2%) patients developed complications which were mostly wound infection (10.8%). the duration of hospital stay was 1-58 days (mean 12.7±10.5). three patients (6.5%) with gunshot injuries died. conclusion: gunshot wounds were the major variant of pai, and the highest cause of mortality from it. gut injuries were most common, and exploratory laparotomy remains the main-stay of treatment, while non-operative management is practicable in carefully selected cases.