Anaesthesia | Trauma | Management of life-threatening abdominal injury

Management of life-threatening abdominal injury
Session Overview
Description
This session deals with the assessment and initial management of the patient with life-threatening abdominal trauma.

Learning Objectives
By the end of this session you will be able to:

• Describe the anatomical boundaries and contents of the abdominal cavity
• Describe the different injury patterns in penetrating and blunt abdominal trauma
• Identify the clinical signs of intra-abdominal injury and apply these in distinguishing between intraperitoneal, retroperitoneal and pelvic injuries
• Give examples of diagnostic procedures useful in the assessment of intra-abdominal injury
• Identify appropriate therapeutic interventions in abdominal trauma

Prerequisites
Before commencing this session you should complete:

• Module 03/Trauma/Primary and secondary survey/The primary survey (001-0356)

Trauma remains a leading cause of death worldwide, particularly in younger age groups.

Unrecognized abdominal injury is a cause of preventable death after trauma. One of the difficulties is that many injuries may not manifest during the initial assessment. Significant injuries may be sustained and/or large amounts of blood may be lost into the abdominal cavity without any dramatic change in physiological parameters or obvious clinical signs.

Clinicians need to be aware that other associated injuries may divert the physician's attention from potentially life-threatening intra-abdominal injuries and it may only be during general assessment for treatment of initially-evident injuries, that other injuries are revealed.

Furthermore, patient assessment can often be compromised by alcohol intoxication, illicit drug use and brain or spinal injury.