Imaging manifestations and the related clinical characteristics of chest trauma during the Yushu Earthquake

The purpose of this study was focused on the imaging features of the chest trauma and its relation to clinical characteristics. All the injured patients were from the Yushu Earthquake areas on days April 14 - 23,2010. After an initial treatment,the injurers were rapidly transported from Yushu at an altitude of 4 000 m via air to Xining at 2 260 m within 6~8 h,and promptly admitted to Qinghai Provincial People’s Hospital. A total of 130 wounded injurers who had high suspicion of chest injuries all had examinations of Chest X-ray and computed tomography(CT)images. Of them 63 injurers presented at least one of the features of the chest trauma in imaging with a positive rate of 48.5 %. Of these,37 cases (28.5 %) were multi-system with multiple injuries ,33 cases (25.4 %) were chest trauma with multi-injury types,which included thoracic fractures in 54 cases (85.7 %),pleural injury in 56 cases (88.9 %),lung injury in 54 cases (85.7 %),lungs complications in 37 cases (58.7 %),and extrapulmonary complications of 35 cases (55.6 %). The radiological data were analyzed retrospectively. The features of chest trauma in Yushu Earthquake,the complications of chest injuries,and the relation between imaging findings and clinical manifestations,as well as the differences of chest trauma between Yushu Earthquake and Wenchuan Earthquake were discussed in detail.