[Vascular injuries--management in a non-university central hospital]

In a retrospective study the surgically treated vascular injuries (n = 35) of the last 10 years were evaluated. One third of the patients had multiple trauma and in 57% of the cases vascular injury was accompanied by a fracture. All patients (n = 28) except those who underwent delayed amputation (amputation rate 14%) have been followed personally for an average of 5.1 years. 90% of these patients showed an excellent or acceptable longtime result in regard to vascularity, nobody complained of claudication. Diagnosis of a vascular injury was mostly confirmed by direct surgical exploration, only one third of the lesions were diagnosed by arteriogram. A positive signal in Doppler examination does not exclude vascular injury and therefore cannot replace arteriography or exact clinical evaluation.