[Colon injuries: treatment study in 313 patients].

The author presents a retrospective descriptive study of 313 colon injuries treated surgically. The lesions were caused by fire arms and knife wounds, impalement and closed abdominal trauma. Results were analysed considering factors directly involved with the outcome in terms of morbidity and mortality. They were age, sex, ethnic group, span of time between traumatic event and surgery, type and anatomical location of colonic lesions and associated injuries, degree of contamination of the abdominal cavity, surgical procedure, intraabdominal and surgical wound, post-operative complications, systemic complications, evolution and results of post-mortem examinations in cases of death. The results of observations can be summarized as follows: 1. Mortality rate was 10.22% (32 patients). 2. The majority of cases with lethal outcome (90.62% or 29 patients) had severe associated or missed injuries, pulmonary embolism and anesthetic complication. 3. There was a 43.75% (14 patients) mortality rate during the first 48 hours. 4. Mortality due directly to poor performance of the surgical procedure was found to be lower than 1%. 5. Primary closure of colon wounds was performed in 60.70% of cases and no deaths could be attributed to this procedure. 6. Different types of colostomy were performed in 109 patients (34.82%). In this group 94.5% of the cases had no complications. 7. Morbidity (31.4%) was mostly consequent to surgical wound complications (16.30%).