DZIELIMY SIĘ DOŚWIADCZENIEM
Tactical aspects of bullet wounds of the chest in peace time – own experience

Introduce: Damage to the chest is one of the most critical problems in urgent surgery. Chest traumas occupy the third place in requiring urgent surgical intervention, and have many purulent-septic complications and high mortality.

Aim: Here we present our own experience with patients suffering from chest trauma due to gunshot wounds.

Material and Methods: Three patients with gunshot wounds underwent emergency video-assisted thoracic surgery (VATS).
In one patient the wounds of the lung and diaphragm were stitched. Two resections of damaged lung tissue were performed. One patient with extensive damage of the chest and abdomen also underwent upper-middle laparotomy.

Results: All patients survived and were discharged home.

Conclusions: The operation of choice in patients with chest trauma is VATS, which usually saves the life of the patients, reduces the operation time period, and leads to fast recovery of patients in the postoperative period. Nowadays there is applied the damage control (DC) concept, representing a fundamental and vitally necessary strategy for patients with a complex trauma.