Retrospective assessment of vascular injuries: 23 years of experience.

Purpose: To analyze the operation methods, injury etiologies and localizations, post-operative complications and the reasons for mortality in patients who were admitted for peripheral vascular injuries to our clinics.

Methods: From January 1979 to February 2002, 410 patients were operated for peripheral vascular injuries. Three hundred and one of the patients were male (73.5%) and 109 of them were female (26.5%), and their ages ranged between 1-88 (mean 35.5 years).

Results: The most common etiological reason was firearm injuries in 163 patients (39.8%). The most common injured artery was the brachial artery (83 patients, 22.5%) among a total of 369 patients whereas the most commonly injured vein was the common femoral vein (60 patients, 23.4%) in a total of 256 patients. Isolated venous injuries were encountered in 41 patients whereas isolated arterial injuries were detected in 154 patients (37.5%). Hospital admission duration of the patients after trauma was approximately 3 hours.

Conclusion: The extremity-salvage rate in the group was 92.3%. The hospital stay period of the patients was 21.8 days. The mortality rate was 2.6% (11 patients).