Objective To investigate the incidence of infection in patients with gunshot-related fractures, and to correlate this finding with the occurrence of surgical debridement in the emergency room. Methods A retrospective, observational, descriptive study that included all cases of fractures caused by firearms between January 2010 and December 2014; 245 fractures in 223 patients were included. Results There was surgical-site infection in 8.5% of the fractures, and the mean number of debridements required to control the infectious process was of 1.273 ± 0.608. A correlation was identified between the surgical treatment chosen and the affected body segment ( p < 0.001). The surgical treatment in the emergency room had a correlation with the occurrence of infection ( p < 0.001; Chi-squared test). Conclusion Patients with gunshot injuries treated non-operatively presented less severe and stable lesions; thus, the incidence of complications in this group was found to be lower. On the other hand, those patients with complex lesions underwent debridement and external fixation. Therefore, a greater number of infectious complications in patients submitted to external fixation was found, as expected.
Keywords: Wound infection/epidemiology; fractures, bone; wounds, gunshot/epidemiology.
The Author(s). This is an open access article published by Thieme under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonDerivative-NonCommercial-License, permitting copying and reproduction so long as the original work is given appropriate credit. Contents may not be used for commercial purposes, or adapted, remixed, transformed or built upon. ( https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/ ).