Treatment of splenic trauma in paediatric age

Abstract

The splenic trauma in children presents some peculiarity that differentiates it from that one in adult age. Therefore we have see again our relative experience on splenic trauma, in the period 2001-2006, confronting two groups of patients, one of inferior age to fourteen years (A Group) and one of advanced age (B Group). We have estimated the following parameters: aetiology, type of lesion, association with others trauma, type of treatment, compliance, mortality, number of transfusions and hospital stay. On a total of 75 splenic trauma(M:52, F:23 of age comprised between 5 and 71 years) 18 belongs to the A group (medium age of 9.2 years) and 57 to the B group (medium ages of 47.4 years). The prevailing aetiology in the A group is domestic accident (39%) and the fall from bicycle (33%), while in the B group it is the street accident (69%). The lesions found in pediatric age are of smaller gravity if compared with B group, for lesion gravity and for association with abdominal and/or extra-abdominal others trauma. In the children group we have performed nonoperative management or conservative surgery in the 83% of cases versus the 26% in the B group. The rate of conversion from a nonoperative treatment in to an operative treatment has been of 7%. The post-operative complicance are absent in the A group and of 5.5% in the B group. The mortality rate in the surgical patients has been of the 14,3% for serious toraco-abdominal trauma in A group and of 11.1% in B group. No mortality is detected in the groups with nonoperative treatment. The medium number of transfusions is of 1.8 units in the paediatric patients and of 2,5 units in the adults. The medium stay in hospital is of eighteen days in the A group and of thirteen days in the B group. In conclusion the marked difference in the two groups examines stays in the type of treatment, more often nonoperative or conservative in the children group.