Review of pediatric abdominal trauma: operative and non‐operative treatment in combined adult and pediatric trauma center

Aim More than 90% of pediatric solid organ abdominal injuries are treated non-operatively. It remains difficult to decide who should graduate to surgical management, more so if adult physicians must make these decisions on pediatric patients. The purpose of this study was to examine outcomes of all pediatric abdominal trauma cases in a single center, focusing on the decision-making algorithm for operative or non-operative treatment by pediatric and adult physicians. Methods We undertook a retrospective review of a pediatric trauma database from April 2006 to March 2016. Groups were divided into operative and non-operative, single or multi-organ injury, and adult or pediatric physician. Operative treatments included laparotomy or interventional radiology procedures. Primary outcome was survival within 30 days. Results There were 53 abdominal trauma cases; among them, 48 (90.6%) survived and 5 (9.4%) died within 30 days. The probability of survival for mortalities was less than 11%. Forty-two cases were treated non-operatively and 11 operatively. Injury Severity Score was higher in operative group (17 [9, 41]/9 [4, 16.3]). Adult physicians saw 33 patients including seven operative, whereas pediatric physicians saw 20 including four operative cases. There was no statistical difference for the management decision between adult and pediatric physicians. Conclusion Our decisions for intervention were within acceptable rates. Adult physicians did not tend to operate more, but there were cases that did not fit the criteria of the algorithm. Further investigation is needed to look at which factors should be focused on to determine whether or not operative treatments are indicated.