A national study of trauma level designation and renal trauma outcomes

Purpose: We examined the initial management of renal trauma and assessed patterns of management based on hospital trauma level designation.

Materials and methods: The National Trauma Data Bank is a comprehensive trauma registry with records from hospitals in the United States and Puerto Rico. Renal injuries treated at a member hospital from 2002 to 2007 were identified. We classified initial management as expectant, minimally invasive (angiography, embolization, ureteral stent or nephrostomy) or open surgical management based on ICD-9 procedure codes. The primary outcome was use of secondary therapies.

Results: Of 3,247,955 trauma injuries in the National Trauma Data Bank 9,002 were renal injuries (0.3%). High grade injuries demonstrated significantly higher rates of definitive success with the first urological intervention at level I trauma centers vs other trauma centers (minimally invasive 52% vs 26%, p <0.001), and were more likely treated successfully with conservative management (89% vs 82%, p <0.001). When adjusting for other known indices of injury severity, and examining low and high grade injuries, level I trauma centers were 90% more likely to offer an initial trial of conservative management (OR 1.90; 95% CI 1.19, 3.05) and had a 30% lower chance of patients requiring multiple procedures (OR 0.70; 95% CI 0.52, 0.95).

Conclusions: Following multivariate analysis conservative therapy was more common at level I trauma centers despite the patient population being more severely injured. Initial intervention strategies were also more definitive at level I trauma centers, providing additional support for tiered delivery of trauma care.