Non-operative management of pediatric blunt abdominal solid organ injuries : our experience at Queen Rania al-Abdullah hospital for children

Abstract EN

Objective : The aim of this study was to report our experience with conservative management of pediatric blunt abdominal solid organ injuries regarding indications, complications, outcome, and success and failure rate.

Method : A retrospective study was carried out at Queen Rania Al-Abdullah Hospital for Children between May 2012 and October 2015, it involved 54 cases who sustained blunt abdominal trauma, 39 were males (72.2 %) and 15 were females (27.8 %), male to female ratio was 2.5 : 1, age of patients ranged from three months up to 14years with mean age of 6.4 years.

Results : Non-operative management of pediatric blunt abdominal solid organ injuries was applied for 54 patients, 22 cases with isolated splenic injury, 15 cases with isolated liver injury, six cases with isolated renal injury, two cases with isolated pancreatic injury and nine cases with multiple solid organ injuries.

Fifty-onecases (94.4 %) were successfully treated with non-operative management, three cases (5.6%) underwent laparotomy after failure of non-operative management.

No complications were identified duringnon-operative management apart from one case of pseudo cyst after pancreatic injury.

Conclusion : Non-operative management of pediatric blunt abdominal solid organ injuries in hemodynamically stable patients is a safe, reliable, simple and effective method with high success rate.

It avoids unnecessary laparotomies and post-operative complications.