Survey of pediatric patients with skull fracture in our emergency department

Abstract

Accident is a major cause of death in children. In pediatric head trauma, there are some patients with skull fractures which might originate from familial carelessness. Here, we investigated the characteristics of the pediatric skull fracture patients who were admitted to our hospital emergency department. From April 2009 to September 2013, 94 patient under 15 years old with skull fractures were studied. The each number of patient was 46 (0 – 2 y.o.), 23 (3 – 6 y.o.), 17 (7 – 12 y.o.), and 8 (13 – 15 y.o.), and the rate of boys were 63%. According to mechanism of injuries, there were 64 patients in falls, 11 in pedestrian vs. vehicle, and 1 in abuse. Parietal bone fractures were frequently observed in falls, and many patients showed multiple skull fractures in accidents and depressed fracture in direct hit of things. Almost patients (86%) were treated conservatively, while a surgical intervention was more needed to the patients in traffic accidents. Good prognosis accounted for 90%, although increased poor prognosis was observed in the traffic accident cases. Because epidemiology of pediatric head trauma in Japan is less, it was considered necessary to continue the future investigation.