The Blunt Abdominal Trauma in Children Scores for early detection of intraabdominal injuries in children

Document Type : Original Article

Authors

1 Department of Emergency Medicine, Faculty of Medicine, Suez Canal University, Suez Canal, Egypt

2 Department of General Surgery, Faculty of Medicine, Suez Canal University, Suez Canal, Egypt

Abstract

Background: For children under the age of 18 years, trauma continues to be the main cause of mortality. In order to
improve the outcomes of children who have blunt abdominal trauma (BAT) and reduce the percentage of abdominal
injuries that are overlooked, our study aims to evaluate the Blunt Abdominal Trauma in Children (BATiC) score for early
prediction of intraabdominal injuries.
Patients and Methods: In a cross-sectional observational research, 123 children who had experienced severe BAT within
24 h were seen in the emergency room of Suez Canal University Hospital in Ismailia. Every patient involved in the
research had a comprehensive medical history, trauma data collection, clinical examination, regular laboratory testing,
and radiographic studies. Next, all of the patients in our department were given the BATiC score upon admission.
Results: The study population included 123 patients. More than half of the study participants (64.2%) have abdominal
pain. Focused Assessment with Sonography for Trauma scan showed mild collection in 38 (30.9%), moderate in 21
(17.1%), and marked in 11 (8.9%). Regarding computed tomography with i.v. contrast, it was found to be abnormal
in more than half of studied patients 62 (50.4%). Presence of organ injury and organ injury by computed tomography,
which showed that slightly more than half, 62 (50.4%) of patients had organ injury. The most commonly injured organ
was the liver in 37 (59.7%). The mean BATiC score was statistically significantly higher in patients with organ injury
(P˂0.001), with statistically significantly positively correlated with organ injury (r=0.913) (P˂0.001). Receiver operating
characteristic curves showed that BATiC score test is acceptable with a significant area under a curve of 0.990. It had a
maximum sensitivity of 93.5% and a specificity of 90.6%, with an accuracy of 92.2%.
Conclusion: When predicting intraabdominal injuries in children who have experienced BAT, the BATiC is a useful tool.

Keywords

The Egyptian Journal of Surgery
Volume 43, Issue 4
October 2024
Pages 1562-1570

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