Flail chest injury is a condition usually resulting from a blunt trauma with a great force to the chest wall causing multiple rib fractures with segmental chest wall instability and leading to significant morbidity and mortality. Flail chest is frequently accompanied by other injuries.
This study aims to assess the pattern of traumatic flail chest injury secondary to blunt chest trauma, in patients admitted to Menoufia University Hospital.
Demographic criteriaof the patients,type and cause of trauma, data about duration of intensive care unit (ICU) stay, hospital stay, time interval to returnto work (complete recovery), occurrence of chest wall deformity, new injury severity score (NISS) and mortality rate, were all collected and studied.
Conclusion: Flail chest injury represented 8.2% of all blunt chest trauma admitted to Menoufia University Hospital during the period of thisstudy. Road traffic accident (RTA) is considered the first cause of flail chest injury. The NISS is a significant way for correlation between the condition of the patients and the mortality rate