Liver injury in children

Summary

AIM:
The presented retrospective clinical study gives an overview of liver injury in children over a period of 11 years (2000-2010) at the Clinic of Pediatric Surgery, Orthopedics and Traumatology, Faculty Hospital Brno. The authors monitored the incidence of complications in the conservative treatment of liver injury and present complex information about this injured children.

METHODOLOGY:
The input data in the study provided the hospital information system, including X-ray records and sonographic documentation. Subsequently, the study group has been split by gender, age range and defined the precise diagnosis (degree of liver injury). Other monitored parameters were length of hospitalization, need for artificial ventilation, mechanism of injury, associated diagnosis and frequency of post-traumatic complications.

RESULTS:
Final group included 43 children with evidence of liver injury. There were 27 boys with an average age of 10.1 and 16 girls with an average age of 11.1. Most often it was a liver contusion, most risk age group of children was 6-10 years (17 cases -19, 3%). The main mechanism of injury was a car crash (25.6%) and falls from bicycles (20.9%). The average length of hospitalization was 14.8, by 12 children (27.9%) the artificial ventilation with an average length of 5.3 days was required. In the study group, there were many associated diagnosis, but nothing significant dominated. In the study group, there were no complications in terms adhesion with ileus or abscess formation, the vast majority of them were represented by only post-traumatic pseudocyst.

CONCLUSION:
The presented study confirmed the low incidence of liver injury in children. The treatment scheme clearly dominated by a conservative approach that has absolutely minimal clinically significant complications.

KEY WORDS:
liver injury, post-traumatic pseudocyst, child, surgical procedures.