Management strategy for open pelvic fractures: A 11-year single-centre, retrospective observational study

Open pelvic fractures are commonly associated with life-threatening, uncontrollable haemorrhages. Although management methods for pelvic injury-associated haemorrhage have been established, the early mortality rate associated with open pelvic fractures remains high. This study aimed to identify predictors of mortality and effective treatment methods for open pelvic fractures.

We defined open pelvic fractures as pelvic fractures with an open wound directly connected to the adjacent soft tissue, genitals, perineum, or anorectal structures, resulting in soft tissue injuries. This study was performed on trauma patients (age ≥15 years) injured by a blunt mechanism between 2011 and 2021 at a single trauma centre. We collected and analysed the data on the Injury Severity Score (ISS), the Revised Trauma Score (RTS), the Trauma and Injury Severity Score (TRISS), length of hospital stay, length of intensive care unit stay, transfusion, preperitoneal pelvic packing (PPP), resuscitative endovascular balloon occlusion of the aorta (REBOA), therapeutic angio-embolisation, laparotomy, faecal diversion, and mortality.

Forty-seven patients with blunt open pelvic fractures were included. The median age was 45 years (interquartile range, 27-57 years) and median ISS was 34 (24-43). The most frequently performed treatment methods were laparotomy (53%) and pelvic binder (53%), followed by faecal diversion (40%) and PPP (38%). PPP was the only method performed at a higher rate in the survival group for haemorrhagic control (41% vs. 30%). Haemorrhagic mortality was present in one case that received PPP. The overall mortality was 21%. In the univariate logistic regression analysis, initial systolic blood pressure (SBP), TRISS, RTS, packed red blood cell transfusion for the first 24 h, and base excess showed statistical significance (p<0.05). In the multivariate logistic regression model, initial SBP was identified as an independent risk factor for mortality (odds ratio, 0.943; 95% confidence interval, 0.907-0.980; p = 0.003).

A low initial SPB may be an independent predictor of mortality in patients with open pelvic fractures. Our findings suggest that PPP might be a feasible method to decrease haemorrhagic mortality from open pelvic fractures, especially for haemodynamically unstable patients with low initial SBP. Further studies are required to validate these clinical findings.