Performance and outcome evaluation of emergency resuscitative thoracotomy in a Norwegian trauma centre: a...

Emergency resuscitative thoracotomy (ERT) is a lifesaving procedure for select indications in severely injured patients. The main body of the literature stem from regions with a high prevalence of penetrating injuries, while data from European institutions remain scarce. We aimed to evaluate a decade of ERT in a Norwegian trauma centre.

A prospectively collected series from the institutional trauma registry of all consecutive trauma patients who had an ERT at Stavanger University Hospital (SUH) from 2006 to 2018. Data were extracted using both registry and electronic patient record (EPR) data, including injury profile, demographics and outcomes. Comparison of groups were done by descriptive statistics.

A total of 26 ERTs were performed during the study period, of which 20 were men (75%) and 6 women (25%). Five patients (19%) survived to hospital discharge, of which 3 men and 2 women with a median age of 46 years (range 24-68). All survivors had thoracic injury as location of major injury (LOMI.). Of the five survivors, four suffered blunt injury and one patient penetrating injury. At one-year of follow-up of the survivors, three patients scored 8/8 on Glasgow outcome scale-extended, 1 patient scored 7/8 and one patient 5/8.

In this study, ERT conferred good outcome with survival in one of every five procedures. Performing ERT in severely injured patients presenting in extremis appears to be justified even in low-volume centres and in blunt trauma.