Background: Vehicle accidents in Greece are among the leading causes of
death and the primary one in young people. The mechanism of injury
influences the patterns of injury in victims of vehicle accidents.
Objective: Identification and analysis of injury profiles of
motor-vehicle trauma patients in a Greek level I trauma centre, by
road-user category.
Patients and methods: The trauma registry data of Herakleion University
Hospital of adult trauma patients admitted to the hospital after a
vehicle accident between 1997 and 2000 were retrospectively examined.
Patients were grouped based on the mechanism of injury into three
road-user categories: car occupants, motorcyclists, and pedestrians.
Results: Of 730 consecutive patients, 444 were motorcyclists (60.8%),
209 were car occupants (28.7%), and 77 were pedestrians (10.5%). Young
men constituted the majority of injured motorcyclists whereas older
patients (p = 0.0001) and women (p = 0.0001) represented a substantial
proportion of the injured pedestrians. With regard to the spectrum of
injuries in the groups, craniocerebral injuries were significantly more
frequent in motorcyclists and pedestrians (p = 0.0001); abdominal (p =
0.009) and spinal cord trauma (p = 0.007) in car occupants; and pelvic
injuries (p = 0.0001) in pedestrians. Although the car occupants had the
highest Injury Severity Score (ISS) (p = 0.04), the pedestrians had the
poorest outcome with substantially higher mortality (p = 0.007) than the
other two groups.
Conclusions: The results reveal a clear association between different
road-user categories and age and sex incidence patterns, as well as
outcomes and injury profiles. Recognition of these features would be
useful in designing effective prevention strategies and in comprehensive
prehospital and inhospital treatment of motor-vehicle trauma patients