What Are the Emergency Medical Pathologies Encountered Among United Nations Peacekeepers in Lebanon? A Retrospective...

Life-threatening or function-threatening emergencies in military forces deployed on operations, excluding war-related injuries, are rarely discussed in the literature. We questioned the prevalence of diseases within a military population on deployment because the characteristics of this population differ from those typically seen in emergency medicine in economically developed countries. In Lebanon, Blue Helmet military personnel suffering from a life-threatening or function-threatening emergency are exclusively evacuated by helicopter. The analysis of these records provides insight into the epidemiology of this military force, which is not involved in combat operations.

We analyzed all the files of the Aero Medical Evacuation Team (AMET), which evacuates all life-threatening or function-threatening emergencies from the United Nations forces in Lebanon. The main objective of the study was to identify the major pathological conditions encountered by all medical evacuation teams within the Blue Helmet force in Lebanon. To standardize the diagnoses, we used the International Classification of Diseases-11 available on the World Health Organization's website.

We analyzed 60 cases that met the inclusion criteria. Five cases were excluded: 2 because the patient had died before AMET arrived on site, and 3 because the files were incomplete. Of the 55 cases treated, the distribution of reasons for intervention was: injury or poisoning: 29 (53%); circulatory system: 14 (25%); nervous system: 8 (16%); immune system: 2 (4%); mental and behavioral disorders: 1 (1%); digestive system: 1 (1%).

We found that the pathologies treated were varied. Although dominated by trauma, nearly half of the cases were non-trauma-related. This reinforces the idea that medical personnel assigned to evacuation missions should be physicians accustomed to emergency medicine. In conclusion, this study sheds light on the urgent medical pathologies faced by the AMET during the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon mission in Lebanon.