[Treatment of thoracic trauma at an emergency hospital]

Thoracic trauma was treated in 159 hospitalised patients within a five-year period, with polytrauma being recorded from 40 per cent of the patients. Application of thorax suction drainage proved to be the most effective first treatment for 50 per cent of all cases. Emergency thoracotomy was necessary in 7.6 per cent. The lethality rate recorded from these cases of thorax injury amounted to twelve per cent.