Judge of surgical indication for blunt injuries of liver and spleen by CT imaging

Recent studies have elucidated that the findings of injuries of parenchimatous organs such as liver and spleen by computed tomography (CT) are consistent with those by surgical operation. But it is still unclear whether CT findings can determine operative indication for blunt injuries of liver and spleen. We performed a retrospective study on 35 lesions of blunt injuries of liver and spleen in 33 cases for blunt injuries of liver and spleen at our hospitals to examine whether CT findings can determine the severity of damage and surgical indication for the injuries, and the following results were obtained. Based on CT findings, the presence of injury was confirmed in all cases except for one lesion. Comparison of CT findings and operative or laparoscopic findings in 12 cases undergoing operation or laparoscopy for liver/spleen injury revealed that the findings of each method were almost the same with few exceptions. When liver/spleen injuries were classified according to the Japanese Association for the Surgery of Trauma (JAST) Classification of injury of liver and spleen, cases with emergency operation had severe injury of Type IIIb for the liver and Type IIIb or higher for the spleen, while conservative treatment was possible for injury cases of Type IIIa or lower of the liver and spleen. From these results, the JAST Classification of these injuries based upon CT imaging was found to be a suitable method for selecting an appropriate treatment for blund injury of liver and spleen. (author)