Chest Trauma: Classification and Influence on the General Management

Abstract

Thoracic trauma is one of the most common injuries in multiple trauma patients and has major prognostic relevance with regard to an increased risk for the development of posttraumatic complications and unfavorable outcome. This chapter provides an overview of the wide variety of injuries that can cause penetrating and blunt chest trauma. As prompt and accurate assessment of trauma diagnosis and injury, severity is crucial for the further treatment diagnostic procedures, classification and different scoring systems are explained. In addition to outlining the general treatment of thoracic trauma in terms of airway management, ventilation and positioning therapy, special focus is placed on the influence of thoracic trauma on the management of concomitant extremity injury in polytraumatized patients.