Epidemiological profile of chest trauma and predictive factors for length of hospital stay in a hospital in Southern Brazil.

INTRODUCTION: Thoracic trauma is one of the most common types, corresponding to 10% of the traumas admitted in emergency services.

OBJECTIVE: To analyse epidemiologic aspects of patients diagnosed with chest trauma in a hospital at the south of Brazil and its predictive factor for prolonged length of stay.

METHODS: We conducted a retrospective cohort involving patients who were victims of chest trauma. They were described by the International Classification of Diseases (ICD) from S20 to S29 admited in a regional hospital in Southern Brazil, from January 2008 to December 2018. The analysed variables were: sex, age, ICD, type of trauma, complication, need for intensive care unit (ICU), mechanical ventilation (MV) and oxygen therapy (O2 ), scores on Injury Severity Score (ISS) and Thoracic Trauma Severity Score (TTSS) and outcomes length of stay and death.

RESULTS: 121 patients were evaluated, with median age 47.0 (35-0-58.5) years, where 84.3% being of them were male. Blunt trauma had a higher prevalence with 85.1%, with the most frequent complication being spine fractures (30.4%), followed by rib fractures (23.2%) and pneumothorax (16.8%). There was need of ICU in 14%, use of O2 in 30.6% and need of MV in 5.8%. The median length of stay was 6.0 (4.0-10.5), and death as an outcome was found in only 1.7%. Relying on the TTSS, the median (p25-p75) found was 3.0 (2.0-5.0) points and the ISS score was 4.0 (0.0-9.0). If observing patients with a length of stay ≥ 6 days, there were an association with the female gender, need of ICU, O2 and MV, ISS scores, and TTSS scores in the categories who involved pleural commitment and minor PaO2 /FiO2 .

CONCLUSION: Most of the victims were male young adults with low mortality. The TTSS and ISS were found to be adequate predictors of prolonged length of stay.