Localization of posttravmatic sternum fractures, correlation and mortality relations

Sternum is a bony structure that forms anterior chest wall, and consist of manubrium, corpus, xiphoid processes. Most common causes of sternum fractures are motorized vehicle accidents and blunt trauma to abdomen-thorax. These fractures incidence in traumas increased due to improvements in CT technology, common use of scanning and mandatory seat belt use. Sternal fractures have simulteneous other injuries.In our study, we aimed to detect location of fracture and relation between location of fracture and accompanying findings. Our study group is consisted of 115 patients who admitted to hospital due to trauma and have a detected sternal fracture, in period of 2007 and september 2018, retrospectively. Patients had been assessed in all plans in PACS(Picture Archiving Communication System) archive system. 99 of patients (%86) were male and 16 of patients (%14) were female. Minimum age of patients was 11 while maximum one was 87. Average age in male patients 53,94 ± 20 years and in female patients 41.40 ± 17.60 years. In conclusion, sternal fracturs are most commonly in manubrium and seen as linear fracture. Additional thoracal pathology had been seen more in patients who have fracture in manubrium than in patients who have in corpus. In thoracic traumas with sternal fractures, as intrathoracic injury, lung contusion and costal fractures were detected most often. Besides, we detected a positive correlation between location of fracture and accompanying symptoms. Key words: sternum, fracture, chest trauma,mortality