Gunshot wounds to the extremities in children and adolescents.

Thirty-seven patients from 8 months to 17 years of age were evaluated prospectively and retrospectively after sustaining gunshot wounds to the extremities. This review supports the belief that higher velocity weapons and shotgun-wound injuries cause greater morbidity, with increased length of hospital stay and increased cost of care. Late growth abnormalities were related to recognized initial physeal injury and not to unrecognized physeal injury. Immediate neurologic deficits usually resolved partially or fully, without surgical treatment.