Audit of thoraco-abdominal injuries in road traffic accidents in Larkana - Autopsy study

A postmortem study of 110 cases of victims dying exclusively due to thoraco-abdominal injuries was undertaken at chandka medical college (cmc) hospital,larkana. the study revealed amongst all the victims of fatal road traffic accidents a substantive number (47.4%) of victims had thoraco-abdominal injuries with an adult male preponderance. most of these cases (50.9%) died at the spot with very few (1.8%) surviving more than 12 hours. majority of the victims (29%) had involvement of both chest and abdomen whereas only 7.3% of the victims had a combination of injuries of the chest,abdomen and fracture of pelvis. the lungs (52.7%) in the chest and the liver (56.3%) in the abdomen were the commonest solid organs involved besides perforation of intestines (10.9%) amongst hollow viscera. pedestrians (54.5%) were the most vulnerable amongst the victims; whereas trucks (42.1%) and buses (34.2%) formed the majority of offending vehicles.