重症外傷の認識が遅れ，やむを得ず救急外来で緊急開腹術を行い救命に至った１例

An８１-year-old man fell down and bruised his left abdomen.
After a while the back pain got worse, and he admitted to the Emergency Department. At hospitals admission, several signs of shock were observed, and contrast-enhanced CT revealed a splenic injury. However, it took an hour and a half to diagnose and convene the trauma team because of the lack of information shared among medical staffs and the delay of the recognition as a severe traumatic injury. Since there was no available operation room at the time, nor there wasn’t time to transfer to another hospital, he was forced to undergo emergency open splenectomy at the Emergency Department. That decision saved his life as a result.
In ２００２, it revealed that the deaths of about ４０％ of expired trauma patients who arrived at emergency centers were probably preventable. Since then, much progress has been made in establishing and generalizing the trauma care and evaluation guidelines.
Our hospital is also making progress in organizing a trauma team and the massive transfusion protocol. However, even if they are well maintained, we won’t be able to decrease the number of preventable trauma deaths（PTD）unless we diagnose it. Improving clinical management as well as making efforts on teamwork, leads to a rapid definitive care in trauma patients.