Emergency Ultrasound Predicting the Need for Therapeutic Laparotomy among Blunt Abdominal Trauma Patients in a Sub-Saharan African Hospital

Table 1

Distribution of baseline characteristics and laparotomy findings for the 195 participants.

Characteristics	Participants
	Number	Percentage
Age groups
<20	22	11
20–40	153	79
41–60	18	9
>60	2	1
Gender
Male	168	86
Female	27	14
Time since injury in hours*
<1	20	10
1-2	84	43
>2	73	37
Unknown	18	10
Mechanism of injury*
Road traffic crash	116	59
Assault	62	32
Fall	13	6
Others	4	2
Therapeutic laparotomy
Massive haemoperitoneum	16	47
Grade 4/5 solid organs injury	12	35
Gut perforation	2	6
Mesenteric tears	1	3
Bladder injury	1	3
Nontherapeutic laparotomy
Retroperitoneal haematoma	1	3
Grade 3 solid organs injury	1	3
SSORTT score	Laparotomy; 𝑁=23	No laparotomy; 𝑁=172
	Number (%)	Number (%)
0	2 (9)	142 (83)
1	0	13 (8)
2	1 (4)	1 (1)
3	5 (22)*	12 (7)
4	6 (26)	3 (2)
5	3 (13)	1 (1)
6	6 (26)*	1 (0)

∗Two participants had nontherapeutic laparotomy with scores of 3 and 6.