National patterns of injury and outcomes of gunshot wounds to the penis: A Trauma Quality Programs retrospective cohort analysis.

Aim: Gunshot wounds (GSW) to the penis represent a rare type of traumatic injury in the civilian United States population. Although small, single-center studies have reported results of care for these types of injured patients, no national analyses have examined this group.
Methods: A cohort of patients with GSW to the penis was identified using the 2017 American College of Surgeons Trauma Quality Programs database, a comprehensive national database of 753 accredited trauma centers.
Results: Gunshot wounds to the penis occurred in 722 patients, which represents 1.7% of all GSW patients ( n  = 41,017). Gunshot wounds from altercations with law enforcement or accidental discharge of a firearm were rare; the vast majority ( n  = 655, 90.7%) occurred as a result of assault, intentional self-harm, attempted suicide, or attempted homicide. Patients with a major concomitant non-genitourinary injury comprised 119 (16.5%) patients of the cohort. Most patients ( n  = 499, 69.1%) underwent a genitourinary procedure during their trauma admission. Penile salvage was successful in most cases, with only 13 (1.8%) patients requiring completion penectomy. Most patients (87.8%) required admission with a median length of stay of 49.8 h. Most patients were treated at the initial trauma center without requiring transfer to another center, and complications during admission were rare.
Conclusions: This analysis, the first national examination of care of patients with GSW to the penis, reveals overall favorable outcomes. Admission and surgical intervention were required in most patients, but penectomy was rare and length of stay was generally short. These results will guide resource utilization and quality improvement efforts in this patient cohort.
Competing Interests: Approval of the research protocol: The protocol for this research project was deemed exempt from full Legacy Health System Institutional Review Board review because it uses publicly available, deidentified data. It conforms to the provisions of the Declaration of Helsinki. Informed consent: N/A. Registry and the registration no. of the study/trial: N/A. Animal studies: N/A. Conflict of interest: None.
(© 2021 The Authors. Acute Medicine & Surgery published by John Wiley & Sons Australia, Ltd on behalf of Japanese Association for Acute Medicine.)