The incidence of ruptured aorta among vehicular fatalities

Dischinger, P. C.; Cowley, R. A.; Shankar, B. S.; Smialek, J. E.

Affiliations

¹Maryland Institute for Emergency Medical Services Systems, Baltimore, Maryland

²State Medical Examiner's Office, Baltimore, Maryland

Abstract

Although blunt injury to the chest with rupture of the thoracic aorta is a frequent occurrence in vehicular accidents, few victims of this injury reach the hospital alive. Thus, analysis of vehicular fatalities resulting from ruptured aorta should give a fairly complete picture of the epidemiologic factors associated with this lesion.

Police reports, autopsy records, and ambulance runsheets were obtained for the 739 traffic fatalities recorded in Maryland in 1985. Of those victims with complete autopsies, it was determined that 105 or 23.5% had a ruptured thoracic aorta. Characteristics of those accidents are described and contrasted to the other fatalities.

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Cited By (5)

Year	Entry
1999	Hassan AM, Mackay M, Padmanaban J, Davis MS. Comparison of real world side impact collisions which occurred in the United Kingdom and United States. In: 43rd Annual Proceedings, Association for the Advancement of Automotive Medicine (AAAM). September 20-21, 1999; Barcelon, Spain.89-100.
2002	Siegel JH, Smith JA, Tenenbaum N, McCammon L, Siddiqi SQ, Presswalla F, Pierre-Louis P, Williams W, Zaretski L, Hutchins K, Perez L, Shaikh J, Natarajan G. Deceleration energy and change in velocity on impact: key factors in fatal versus potentially survivable motor vehicle crash (MVC) aortic injuries (AI): the role of associated injuries as determinants of outcome. In: 46th Annual Proceedings, Association for the Advancement of Automotive Medicine (AAAM). September 30–October 2, 2002; Tempe, AZ.
2009	Arregui-Dalmases C, Del Pozo E, Kindig M, Lopez-Valdes F, Forman J, Kent R. The magnitude, phasing, and attenuation of pressure waves in the aorta during abdominal belt loading. In: Proceedings of the 2009 International IRCOBI Conference on the Biomechanics of Impact. September 9-11, 2009; York, UK.69-83.
2005	Forman J, Kent R, Bolton J, Evans J. A method for the experimental investigation of acceleration as a mechanism of aortic injury. In: Proceedings of the SAE World Congress & Exhibition. April 11-14, 2005; Detroit, MI. Warrendale, PA: Society of Automotive Engineers. SAE 2005-01-0295.
2007	Shah CS. Investigation of Traumatic Rupture of the Aorta (TRA) by Obtaining Aorta Material and Failure Properties and Simulating Real-World Aortic Injury Crashes Using the Whole-Body Finite Element (FE) Human Model [PhD thesis]. Detroit, MI: Wayne State University; 2007.