Correlating abdominal pain and intra-abdominal injury in patients with blunt abdominal trauma.

Background: A thorough history and physical examination in patients with blunt abdominal trauma (BAT) is important to safely exclude clinically significant intra-abdominal injury (IAI). We seek to evaluate a correlation between self-reported abdominal pain, abdominal tenderness on examination and IAI discovered on CT or during exploratory laparotomy.

Methods: This retrospective analysis assessed patients with BAT ≥13 years old who arrived to the emergency department following BAT during the 23-month study period.