[Characteristic of combat trauma and treatment of gunshot fractures of long bones of the limbs].

Treatment of the patients with gunshot fractures of extremity long bones is one of the main problems of field surgery. The complex study of medical records obtained from 718 servicemen with gunshot fractures of extremity long bones who participated in counter-terrorist operation in the Republic of Chechnia (1994-1996) allowed to evaluate character and severity of the injuries, content of the treatment measures conducted at the stages of medical evacuation. The peculiarities of fighting trauma were the following: the high frequency of combined (22.5%) and multiple (25.9%) injuries, the high share of multi-fragmentation and splintered (76.4%), intra-articular fractures (17.3%), the primary defects of bones (7.1%) and soft tissues (4.8%), the injuries of main vessels (12.1%) and nerves (18.5%). Owing to the short periods of evacuation to the stage of specialized medical care (up to 18.2 +/- 5.3 h), high share of preserving variant of primary surgical treatment (82.3%); high quality of medical immobilization at the expense of wide introduction of functionally stable external osteosynthesis (51.2% of the casualties) it was possible to improve the treatment results.