Citation

Hinsley DE, Rosell PA, Rowlands TK, Clasper JC. Br. J. Surg. 2005.

Affiliation

Department of Trauma and Orthopaedics, Nuffield Orthopaedic Centre, Oxford, UK.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2005, John Wiley and Sons)

DOI

10.1002/bjs.4911

PMID

15744703

Abstract

BACKGROUND:: War wounds produce a significant burden on medical facilities in wartime. Workload from the recent conflict was documented in order to guide future medical needs. METHODS:: All data on war injuries were collected prospectively. This information was supplemented with a review of all patients admitted during the study period. RESULTS:: During the first 2 weeks of the conflict, the sole British field hospital in the region received 482 casualties. One hundred and four were battle injuries of which nine were burns. Seventy-nine casualties had their initial surgery performed by British military surgeons and form the study group. Twenty-nine casualties (37 per cent) sustained gunshot wounds, 49 (62 per cent) suffered wounds from fragmentation weapons and one casualty detonated an antipersonnel mine. These 79 patients had a total of 123 wounds that were scored prospectively using the Red Cross Wound Classification. Twenty-seven (34 per cent) of the wounded were non-combatants; eight of these were children. Four patients (5 per cent) died. CONCLUSION:: War is changing; modern conflicts appear likely to be fought in urban or remote environments, producing different wounding patterns and placing non-combatants in the line of fire. Military medical skills training and available resources must reflect these fundamental changes in preparation for future conflicts.