Abstract
A 60-year-old woman driving a car was involved in a traffic accident. She consumed a large amount of food just before the accident. Her car collided with an oncoming car, and she was wearing a seatbelt. On arrival at the emergency room, she was fully conscious and no bruising was evident on any part of her body. CT imaging revealed no evidence of pneumothorax, pulmonary contusion, intraabdominal bleeding, or pneumoperitoneum, and therefore we began conservative management. Three hours after arrival, however, she vomited a small quantity of blood. We therefore conducted a plain abdominal CT. This revealed a region of high absorption in the stomach, and leakage of contrast medium from the lesser curvature of the stomach was suspected. Emergency endoscopy revealed laceration of the mucosa at the lesser curvature, and the torn mucosa was closed with a clip. Gastric rupture due to blunt abdominal trauma is rare. In this case, the rapid deceleration was considered to be one of the causes of the laceration. We report this case with considerations on the mechanism of damage to the gastric mucosa.
