Shotgun injuries. Need for a special point of view

Shotgun injuries (SGI) are infrequent, but due its special ballistics, are related to adverse outcomes.

To analyze operative and administrative variables, critical for the institution.

Demographics and health-care related variables from SGI patients admitted to Military Central Hospital (Mexico City) between July 2006 and August 2019, were retrospectively studied. Statistics methods used were dispersion measures and relative occurrence frequency.

Over a 15 months-span, 21 SGI patients were admitted. Mean age was 36.9 ± 13.6 years (range: 14-61) and male gender was dominant (n = 20; 95%). Type II SGI were the most common injuries (62%; 13/21). Mean hospital length of stay was 37.1 ± 28.7 days (range: 3-109) while stay at ICU was 20.3 ± 22.5 days (range: 3-99). Global rate of morbidity was 82% (17/21) and most frequent complications were infective. Global mortality rate was 24% (5/21).

Once SGI cause prolonged length of stay, high rate of morbidity and of enormous consuming of material and human resources, primary prevention strategies are convenient for health-care systems compromised to the care of these cases.