A Clinical Analysis of 31 Cases of Splenectomy

The author reviewed 31 cases of splenectomy between January 1975 and June 1984, at the department of surgery, college of medicine, Ewha womans'university. The results of analysis are summerized as follow; 1) The highest incidences of age range were 3rd and 4th decades, and male to female ratio was 1.6:1. 2) The causes of traumatic splenic injury were traffic accident(58.33%), violence (25%) and falling down(16.67%) in order of frequency. 3) The traumatic injury was composed of mutiple injury(58.33%) and single splenic injury (41.67%). The most common associated injury was intraabdominal bleeding(58.33%) and rib fracture was 16.67% as extraabdominal injury. 4) The hematologic findings on admission were as follow; 1. The value of hemoglobin was below 10mg/dl in 66.67%. 2. The hematocrit level was below 35% in 33.33%. 3. The leukocyte count was above 15000/mm³ in 50%. 5) The abdominal paracentesis were performed in 10 cases and 7 cases(70%) showed the positive findings. 6) The time interval between injury and operation was within 8 hours in 8 cases(66.67%). 7) The incidence of postoperative complication was 16.13%, and the rate of wound infection, atelectasis and intestinal obstruction was 0.65% in each. 8) The seasonal distribution suggested that spletic injury was more prevalent in summer(58.33%). 9) The motality was 1 case(3.23%) but this was not associated with traumatic injury.