Penetrating thoracic trauma has a high mortality rate of 30% for subjects with stab wounds and 52% for those with gunshot wounds.
Less than a quarter of patients with a penetrating cardiac injury reach the hospital alive.
Of those who do and who are operated on, about 90 percent will survive.
Other injuries necessitating emergency operation are lung parenchyma, intercostal vessels and internal thoracic vessels, and great vessels of the thorax.
Gunshot wounds of the thorax remain more lethal than stab wounds.
2011-08-16
Eng.
The Journal of thoracic and cardiovascular surgery
Metropolitan Trauma Service Pietermaritzburg, Department of General Surgery, Nelson R Mandela School of Medicine, University of Kwa-Zulu Natal, Durban, South Africa. nirusha.maharaj [at] kznhealth.gov.za
J Thorac Cardiovasc Surg. 2011 Sep;142(3):563-8
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