Blunt Trauma to the Heart and Great Vessels

Abstract

With the increase in the number of high-speed motor vehicle accidents, blunt trauma has become a major health problem. Improvements in the techniques of transporting injured patients and in the care given outside the hospital have increased the number of patients with severe injuries who reach the emergency room alive. Nevertheless, chest injuries are the cause of many deaths.¹³ Injury to the heart is involved in 20 percent of road-traffic deaths, and the thoracic aorta or arch vessels in 15 percent.⁴⁷ In clinical series of patients with blunt trauma to the chest, the rate of cardiac injury varies . . .