Staging and treatment of blunt renal trauma

Based on adequate radiological and other clinical data available in our 21 consecutive patients with blunt renal traumas (16 lacerations and 5 contusions), we studied whether the treatments adopted had been judicious and whether radiological and other clinical findings could be characterized for each group with different treatment modalities. In cases with stable vital signs, renal lacerations were associated with relatively small hematomas and these cases were treated safely by bed rest for about 1 month. Cases with unstable vital signs had large voluminous hematomas and renal lacerations often associated with significant diastasis. In these patients with major renal injuries who required surgical intervention, angiography was useful for evaluating the lesions and arterial embolization was very useful for stabilizing the patients' conditions and fascilitating the subsequent surgical treatments. (author)