[Types of abdominal war injuries in relation to colonic injuries analyzed during 2 war years of treatment at the Clinic for Abdominal Surgery in Sarajevo].

The basic characteristics of war in Sarajevo are occasional shelling, sniper fire, unexpected shelling and a lack of a front line in the classic sense of the word. The extent of the wound is the key factor in deciding how the patient is to be treated. A primary contamination of this kind of wound has all the conditions to turn into a manifest infection. The abdomen wounds, because of their severity and direct threat to life, are among the most dangerous wounds altogether. They make up on average 10% of all war wounds and the mortality of these patients by today's literature is high, about 6%. The aims of this paper are to show which organs in the abdomen are wounded and what is their relationship to the wounding of the colon, and to show what is the relation between multiple and isolated wounding of the abdomen. During the years 1992 and 1993, 1106 patients with war wounds were treated at the clinic for the abdominal surgery. From that number 71 patients were treated with explorative laparotomy. The large intestine was injured in 274 patients while 221 patients had injuries of the small intestine. An injury of the liver was found in 165 cases. The gall bladder was injured in 18 cases. The stomach was injured in 324 patients. The pancreas was damaged in 72 patients. There were 94 cases of injured spleens. The kidneys were wounded in 30 cases. In 40 cases there was bleeding from the retroperitoncum. Treatment of the omentumen was carried out in 753 patients. The number of patients who did not survive is 135 of which 44 had an injury of the large intestine. A retrospective analysis data shows that the number of multiple wounds makes up over 98% of all wounds. Isolated wounds of abdominal organs are found in less than 2% of all cases. The increase mortality in our research can be explained greater energy of the projectiles which amplify the acceleration at asphalt surfaces which product the greater destructions of the tissue and the massiveness of the injuries.