Materials and Methods: From 2012 to 2017, 47 consecutive patients underwent surgical treatment for chest trauma at the Gaziantep University Hospital, in Turkey. The demographic and relevant clinical information was retrospectively collected from the hospital records. Data included mechanism of injury, gender, age, findings, treatment modality complications, length of hospital stay, morbidity, and mortality. Injuries were classified as penetrating (gunshot or shrapnel wounds) and blunt injuries.

Results: The average age of patients was 25.4 years (range, 4 to 43 years) and 40 patients were males (85%). Sadly, 6 patients were under 18 years old. 41 patients (87.2%) with penetrating and 6 (12.8%) with blunt injuries. The most penetrating injuries to the chest were caused by shrapnel (61.7%). Eleven patients had already had emergency thoracotomy in another hospital before admission. In our study, 28 patients had pneumothorax, and 22 patients had hemothorax (Some patients have multiple diagnoses). However, there were 26 (23.64%) lung contusions in patients. No surgery-related deaths or major morbidity occurred. So, in all cases, the mortality rate was 2.13%.

Conclusions: Intervention in thoracic trauma patients is lifesaving and satisfying compared to other system injuries. Most thoracic injuries can be treated with tube thoracostomy and conventional therapy. Keywords : war, thoracic injury, surgery, trauma, penetrating injury, blunt injury